EWAM 





!<ISS_ 






Book fi ^^yj^ 



i'i<i:.sK.\Ti;i) iiv 



The Story 



OF 



New yimsterdam 



BY 

WILLIAM R. SHEPHERD, Ph. D., L. H. D. 

Professor of History 
in Columbia University 



New York 
MCMXVII 







F122 






A 






.S5>t 




Reprinted 






from the 






Copyright 






Year Book of 




The 


Holland Society of New York 




Copyright 1917. 





[ii] 



To the 

Uprightness 

The Virtue and Integrity 

The Candor the Justice and the Reliability 

'\ that constitute the pyramid of fame 

which rests upon the proud title of 

''^Honest Dutchman''' 

This little book is dedicated by its author as 

a token of esteem for the descendants of the 

founders of New Amsterdam represented by 

THE HOLLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



[iii] 



FOREWORD 

When the mind runs back through the centuries that 
connect the huge metropoHs of the western world with 
a quaint little town perched on the southern tip of Man- 
hattan, it conjures up a vision of achievement more 
wondrous by far than the tales of Arabian magic. To 
picture remote beginnings is often an easy task, but 
for the beginners themselves to imagine the outcome 
of their handiwork requires a gift of prophecy they 
cannot have. The thoughts of those who are privileged 
to survey the result, as well as view its struggling in- 
ception, must ever be tinged with mystic regret that 
the founders were denied a share in the contemplation 
of what was to be accomplished. As we invoke the 
shades of the lengthening past of our great city, there- 
fore, let us call up in memory the townsmen of the days 
when old New York was young New Amsterdam, and 
invite them to rejoice with us in spirit that they builded 
so wisely and so well! 

No clearer proof of the marvels that have been 
wrought, no keener conception of what the metropolis 
is, and what it means to those who dwell within it, 
could be supplied than that offered by a study of it dur- 
ing most of the seventeenth century. If comparisons 
at times be odious they are often instructive. Any 
description of New York at present, while stimulating 
enough to our pride in size and numbers and material 
things, leaves our sense of appreciation vague, simply 
because we are in the city and of it. The population, 
after all, is only the individual man, woman and child 
multiplied in myriads, and the municipal structure 
itself naught but their personal possessions enlarged to 
a vast degree. Intimately familiar with the giant com- 
plex, unable to dissociate it from ourselves and our 
belongings, we are constrained to fancy that it must 

|v] 



always have been such. If we would perceiv^e New 
York as it is, we must set it mentally beside New 
Amsterdam as it was, and visualize the difference. 

Many years indeed were to elapse ere the little Dutch 
town on Manhattan could reveal the promise of its 
future greatness under a change of name and rule. Yet 
the promise was there, hidden in the bosom of a won- 
drous harbor where a noble stream, coursing from plains 
and forests that stretched northward and westward in 
boundless magnificence, mingled its waters with an 
ocean girdling the globe; hidden in adjoining shores and 
islands where the sites of a million homes awaited the 
strokes of the craftsman who should fashion the foun- 
dation of nature into the residence of man; hidden in a 
microcosm of a few hundred souls, even then repre- 
sentative of numerous nations of earth, and destined to 
become a world state in miniature, to which should be 
gathered men, women and children of every clime to 
dwell in peace and contentment under the starry flag 
of hope and freedom. 

This world state in miniature, made up of many 
nationalities brought together as a community of single- 
ness, may well be a pattern and a symbol for the peoples 
of Europe, Asia, Africa and the isles of the sea. From 
the example it affords of municipal nationalism they 
may take courage and from it seek inspiration; for it 
shows that men of varied speech and of different race, 
custom and tradition can assemble and live side by side 
in harmony under the protecting aegis of a democracy 
that yields to each the measure of his worth and recks 
not of privilege inherited or of distinction born of 
distant ages. 

W. R. S. 



[vij 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Trading Station i 

Civic Spirit 12 

Rise of the Town 34 

The Struggle for Town Rights 56 

Municipal Growth 71 

The Passing of New Amsterdam 91 



[vii] 



THE STORY OF NEW AMSTERDAM 

by 
William R. Shepherd 

Professor oj History in Columbia University 

TO NEW AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK 

By history's pen thy rise is thus explained: 
An island wild, a busy mart, the scene 
Of struggle for a city's rights attained; 
Metropolis become, the New World's queen 
Of empire, in the arts of trade renowned — 
A tribute to thee on historic ground! 

THE TRADING STATION 




HE seventeenth century was peculi- 
arly the age of great commercial 
companies, organized for trade and 
colonization, endowed by their gov- 
ernments with extensive powers, 
and given a monopoly in their 
various transactions. Of these cor- 
porations the Dutch East India 
Company was a notable example. A few years after 
its foundation it entrusted to Henry Hudson, an 
English sailor who had done good service in Arctic 
waters, the task of finding a northwest passage to Asia, 
which would lessen the long journey around the Cape 
of Good Hope, or through the Straits of Magellan. 
Though French and Spanish navigators may have 
seen the river that was to bear the name of Hudson, 
eighty years and more before the "Half Moon" cau- 
tiously poked its nose into the lower bay, the real credit 
for its discovery belongs to the Anglo-Dutch captain. 
It was his achievement that made the stream known to 
the European world and rendered it commercially 
useful. Here local legend affirms the sober truth of 
history, for when it thunders in the Catskills the chil- 
dren and the old people say that Hendrik Hudson and 

his 



I THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

his phantom crew are playing at skittles. Could 
Hudson have peered through the mist of the coming 
centuries and have caught a vision of the mighty city 
on Manhattan for whose Dutch foundation he had 
himself provided, the thought of seeking a northwest 
passage to India must have seemed a trivial thing. 

Though variously derived and interpreted, the com- 
monly accepted meaning of the Indian word from which 
the name "Manhattan" was taken is "island of the 
hills." In the seventeenth century its southern part 
showed a series of wooded hills, some of them eighty 
feet above the present street level, interspersed with 
grassy valleys, a chain of swamps and a deep pond. To 
the northward lay high and rocky ground rising at 
times to 240 feet above tide-water. 

While it is true that the Dutch East India Company, 
interested only in Asiatic commerce, saw fit to ignore 
Hudson's report on the possibilities of the fur trade in 
the region that he had visited, certain shrewd merchants 
of Amsterdam dispatched a number of small ships to 
traffic with the Indians on Manhattan. By 1613 it 
appears that their agents had built three or four rude 
cabins in the neighborhood, perhaps, of 39 Broadway. 
Another vessel, the "Tiger," commanded by Captain 
Adrian Block, happened to burn up, but the loss was 
quickly repaired. "The oaks that sheltered bears on 
the slopes of Wall Street, where today bulls as well as 
bears are found, were fashioned into a trim sloop of 
sixteen tons and christened the 'Onrust' or 'Restless,' 
a name prophetic of that restless or unresting commerce 
of which it was the tiny germ." With this product of 
Manhattan raw material Block sailed into the Sound 
via the East River, which he called the "Hellegat" 
after a branch of the river Scheldt near Hulst in 
Zealand. Whether the word means "clear inlet," or 
figuratively what its present English spelling and 
pronunciation might indicate, the name is now applied 
only to that part of the East River where its waters 
mingle with those of the Sound. 

Two young savages brought back by the Dutch 
captains may have imparted a zest to the spirit of 

enterprise 



The Story of New Amsterd am 3 

enterprise on Manhattan, for, in 1614, the Amsterdam 
merchants who had begun work there procured from 
the general government of the Netherlands a grant that 
would enable them to continue it to better advantage. 
In the language of the grant, "whereas we understand 
it would be honorable, serviceable and profitable to this 
country, and for the promotion of its prosperity, as well 
as for the maintenance of seafaring people, that the 
good inhabitants should be excited and encouraged to 
employ and occupy themselves in seeking out and dis- 
covering passages, havens, countries and places 

and being informed by some traders that they intend 
with God's merciful help, by diligence, labor, danger 
and expense, to employ themselves thereat, as they 
expect to derive a handsome profit therefrom," a 
monopoly of trade between the fortieth and the forty- 
fifth parallels of latitude, i. e. between Virginia and 
New France, was to be guaranteed for a specified 
period. The body organized for the purpose had no 
powers of government, but merely the rights of dis- 
covery and trade, the latter of which, apparently, was 
prosecuted with some vigor during the allotted term. 

The actual settlement of Manhattan began with the 
incorporation, in 1621, of the Dutch West India 
Company, a New World counterpart of the Dutch 
East India Company. This body was vested with 
extraordinary and almost exclusive authority for 24 
years, subject to renewal, over the "barbarous coasts" 
of Africa and America. The general government of the 
Netherlands reserved the right of supervision, regula- 
tion and appeal in specific cases. The management of 
the corporation, with its five distinct city chambers or 
boards, was entrusted to a Council of Nineteen; but 
the ordinary direction of affairs in North America fell 
to the Amsterdam Chamber alone. 

The terms of the charter granted to the Dutch West 
India Company will bear a brief inspection, for they 
show that the operations in "New Netherland" — the 
name now definitely attached to the Hudson region — 
concerned only a business venture. According to the 
charter, the governor or director general of New Nether- 
land 



4 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

land was to wield absolute power, tempered by the 
privilege of appeal to the Amsterdam Chamber, thence 
to the Council of Nineteen, and thence to the States 
General, or government of the Netherlands itself. On 
important matters the Council of Nineteen had to con- 
sult the five separate chambers, and they in turn the 
directors and chief promoters in the large cities. Amid 
the confusion awakened by discussion, reference and 
counter reference, colonial affairs of a distinctly local 
sort were apt to meet with sorry consideration. 

The charter bound the Company to "advance the 
peopling of those fruitful and unsettled parts, and to do 
all that the service of those countries and the profit and 
increase of trade shall require;" but the corporation 
chose to emphasize only the "profit and increase of 
trade." Colonization and agriculture were an after- 
thought. Being a quasi-public organization, it took up 
the struggle of the fatherland with Spain, and naturally 
regarded the plunder of Spanish treasure ships as more 
desirable than the comparatively trivial sum derived 
from the furs of New Netherland. Especially did the 
advantage accrue to the former when persistent neglect 
and other evidences of a bad economic policy made even 
the traffic in furs a financial loss. Had the settlers on 
Manhattan not evinced such sturdy courage and 
perseverance in coping with the obstacles offered by 
contact with the wilderness, with Indians and with 
jealous colonial neighbors. New Amsterdam must have 
perished soon after its foundation. Under a regime, 
now neglectful, now despotic, the history of the trading 
station was bound to be rather uneventful, if not dull, 
until the time came when the conscious interests of an 
island community were to clash with the will of an 
arbitrary governor. 

The province of New Netherland having been digni- 
fied by the armorial insignia of a countship — a shield 
with a beaver surmounted by a count's coronet en- 
circled with the words: "Sigillum Novi Belgii" ("Seal 
of New Belgium"), the Company proceeded to make 
good its title to the country by actual occupation. In 
1623 it sent out thirty families under Captain Cornelius 

May, 



The Story of New A msterd a m 5 

May, the first director general or governor. Eight men 
only were placed at Manhattan, and they established 
themselves in a little cluster of huts, henceforth to be 
known as New Amsterdam. The expedition arrived just 
in time to frustrate an attempt of the commander of a 
French vessel who was about to appropriate Man- 
hattan in the name of the king of France. A Dutch 
sloop, rendered imposing by two cannon, promptly 
escorted the Frenchmen down the bay and saw them 
off at the Narrows. 

The instructions of the Company to the director 
general would not have appealed to the advocates of 
local self-government had such been found among the 
early settlers. He was to exercise his authority "as 
their father and not as their executioner, leading them 
with a gentle hand. For he who governs as a friend and 
associate will be beloved by them, but he who shall rule 
them as a superior will overthrow and bring to naught 
everything. Tis better to govern by love and friendship 
than by force." But as the director general was the 
interpreter of these sound admonitions, his construction 
of their ethics might seem at times a trifle forced. 

Under Governor May the fur trade prospered, while 
the settlers eked out an existence from Indian supplies 
and the Company's stores. In 1625 the Company 
dispatched three vessels with horses, cattle, farming 
implements and seed, along with several families of 
emigrants. The animals were landed first at Nutten 
(Governor's) Island; but on account of the lack of 
pasture they were carried to Manhattan, where they 
throve on grass "as beautiful and long as one could 
wish." The goodly herbage for the beast had its coun- 
terpart in rich refreshment for man, since we are 
reliably informed that strawberries were so plentiful 
that people were accustomed "to lie down among them 
to eat them." 

With the arrival of Peter Minuit as director general 
in 1626, a more systematic administration was intro- 
duced. It took the form of an adaptation of elements 
already existing in the fatherland to the actual needs 
of a small community planted for business purposes. 

The 



6 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

The people whom Minuit ruled were regarded merely 
as servants of the Company. They could not hold land 
in their own right, they could not trade with the 
Indians, and could not engage in manufactures except 
in their capacity as the Company's agents. A council 
was appointed to assist the director general in his task. 
Its members were Peter Byvelt, Jacob Elbertsen Wis- 
sinck, Jan Janssen Brouwer, Simon Dircksen Pos, and 
Reynert Harmennsen. Other officers chosen were the 
chief commissary, bookkeeper and secretary, known as 
the "koopman," Isaac de Rasieres by name, and a 
functionary called the "schout" who acted as sheriff, 
public prosecutor, inspector of customs, and on Sunday, 
as beadle and tithing-man. These duties were per- 
formed by one Jan Lampo. For spiritual needs the 
Company provided two "Krankbesoekers" or "Zieken- 
trosters" — a combination of lay reader and consoler of 
the sick — whose especial function it was to take the 
place of a clergyman by reading to the people on Sunday 
texts out of the Scriptures, together with the creeds. 

One of the first acts of the new governor was to 
strengthen by purchase the title of the Company al- 
ready held by occupation. One may accredit him, 
therefore, with having made the first real estate transac- 
tion on Manhattan to which civilized peoples were a 
party. For the sum of sixty guilders, or about twenty- 
four dollars, paid in various kinds of alluring trinkets, 
he bought from the neighboring Indians the 22,000 
acres on Manhattan at the fate approximately of ten 
acres for a cent. 

Minuit's interest in real estate soon led him to put 
improvements on it. Under his supervision a fort 300 
feet long by 250 feet broad flanked with four bastions, 
one of them faced with "good quarry" stone, was 
staked out and partially erected on the site of the 
United States' custom-house, just south of Bowling 
Green. The fort, according to the "koopman," was to 
serve as a "battery that could command both rivers." 
Another structure to arise at this time was a mill for 
grinding grain by horse-power, since the settlers did not 
have the tools and apparatus necessary for putting up 

the 



The Story of New A msterd a m 7 

the usual Dutch windmill. The mill was located on 
South William Street near Pearl. Its loft fitted with 
rough benches served as a religious assembly-room. 
Here, in 1628, the Reverend Jonas Michaelius, the first 
clergyman in New Amsterdam, took charge of the 
services. He formed his first consistory with two elders, 
one of whom was Director General Minuit. The im- 
provised church could then boast of fifty communicants, 
Dutch and Walloon. 

Another building that bore witness to the governor's 
energy was a stone warehouse, thatched with reeds. 
Part of this edifice became the village store. Here 
Dutchmen and Indians smoked their pipes and bar- 
gained for furs. Not far away thirty dwellings, con- 
structed chiefly of the bark of trees, straggled along the 
east side of Pearl Street. Minuit also laid out several 
farms or "bouweries" for the Company in the meadows 
facing the East River. These he stocked with cattle, 
sheep and hogs. The farms were tilled by the settlers, 
each of whom the Company furnished with the neces- 
sary animals. 

Having due regard to the excellent commercial loca- 
tion of New Amsterdam, the director general began the 
industry of ship-building on a rather large scale. In 
1 63 1 he launched a vessel of 800 tons burden and 
equipped for carrying thirty guns. It was the largest 
ship built in America up to this time, and was even one 
of the largest in the world. Nearly two centuries 
elapsed before the shipwrights on Manhattan ventured 
to imitate the proportions of this pioneer craft of New 
Amsterdam. 

Busied in the fur-trade, house-building, and the com- 
mon farming, the settlement throve, and, with the 
advent of newcomers in the shape of Walloons and 
others transferred from the head-waters of the Hudson 
and the Delaware, by 1628 the number of inhabitants 
had risen to 270. 

One unfortunate occurrence that was destined to 
entail a terrible vengeance marred this picture of quiet 
progress. The incident was the robbery and murder of 
an Indian by some of the Company's laborers near the 

'' large 



8 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

large pond called indifferently the "Fresh Water" and 
the "Kalch Hoek" or "Shell Point," from a tiny cape 
projecting into it on which lay heaps of oyster shells. 
Later the name became anglicized into "The Collect." 
The pond covered the district now bounded by Baxter, 
White, Elm, Duane and Park Streets. Tradition had it 
that on darksome nights the lingerer by this pool heard 
the swisliing paddles of a canoe propelled by a phantom 
chief. The tradition was prophetic, for in 1796 were 
heard in actuality the swishing paddles of John Fitch's 
tiny steamship, eighteen feet by six, propelling the 
forerunner of our ocean greyhounds about the pond at 
the lively rate of six miles an hour. 

The successor of Minuit in the post of director general 
was Wouter van Tvviller, formerly a clerk in the West 
India Company's warehouse in Amsterdam. He is 
characterized by Brodhead, the historian of New York, 
as "deficient in the knowledge of men, inexperienced, 
incompetent and irresolute"; and Captain David 
Pietersen De Vries, his contemporary, declared that the 
Company had promoted van Twiller from a clerkship 
in old Amsterdam so that he might "act farces" in New 
Amsterdam. Yet within the limits of his ability the 
new governor certainly tried his best to serve his em- 
ployers in their business venture. 

Van Twiller disembarked at New Amsterdam in the 
spring of 1633 after the little community had been 
headless for more than a year. Accompanying the 
director general were a number of soldiers to garrison 
the fort, and several notable civilians like Jacob van 
Couwenhoven, and his brother-in-law, Govert Loocker- 
mans, a new domine in the person of the Reverend 
Everardus Bogardus, who came to succeed the Rever- 
end Michaelius, and a schoolmaster named Adam 
Roelandsen. The educational efforts of the individual 
last mentioned appear to have been financially so ill 
requited that he had to take in washing at so much per 
year to eke out a livelihood! 

The governor promptly formed his council, consisting 
of Jacob Janssen Hesse, Martin Gerritsen, Andries 
Hudde, and Jacques Bentyn. The duties of "schout" 

were 



The Story of New A msterd a m 9 

were assumed hy Conrad Notelman; but some differ- 
ence appears in the assignment of the minor offices, that 
of secretary being separated from the functions of 
commissary and bookkeeper, the former going to Jan 
van Remund, and the latter to CorneUus van Tienho- 
ven. 

ReaHzing that the receipts from the fur business were 
not so large as might be desired, and had even shown a 
tendency of late to fall off, the Company ordered van 
Twiller to spare no expenditure at the central points of 
trade. The director general first turned his attention to 
the fort. During the interval since the departure of 
Minuit the earthen ramparts of that stronghold had 
suffered from the depredations of stray cattle that had 
wandered over them in quest of herbage. Having put 
the fort in partial repair, he proceeded to erect a guard- 
house and barracks within the enclosure. Next he set 
up three windmills. One of them stood on Broadway 
between Liberty and Cortlandt Streets. The others he 
placed so near the buildings within the fort that the 
south wind was intercepted from their sails. Perhaps 
the slow and measured revolutions of the winged arms 
may have possessed peculiar charm for the placid van 
Twiller! 

Pursuing his building operations further, the gov- 
ernor constructed for himself a brick mansion to com- 
port with his official dignity, and various wooden 
dwelling-houses for the use of his subordinates, as well 
as for the smith, cooper and other artisans. Then on 
the Company's farm lying to the north of the fort he 
erected a bakery on Pearl Street near Whitehall, a 
brewery on Bridge Street between Broad and Whitehall, 
a boat-house and several barns. One of the Company's 
farms — the so-called "boschen bouwerie," or "farm in 
the woods," located at what was subsequently known 
as the village of Greenwich, and covering the site of a 
former Indian settlement — he converted into a to- 
bacco plantation, the crop from which was the first 
successful yield from agriculture on Manhattan. 

Like his predecessor, van Twiller evinced a com- 
mendable solicitude for the spiritual as well as the 

material 



10 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

material Interests of the community in his charge. 
The loft over the horse-mill he now replaced by a more 
commodious, if rather barn-like, structure to serve as a 
church. It was situated near Pearl Street, between 
Whitehall and Broad. The cemetery did not adjoin the 
church. That was laid out on West Broadway above 
Morris Street. For Domine Bogardus, also, he pro- 
vided a house and stable on Whitehall Street near 
Bridge. The relations between the director and the 
domine, however, were not altogether friendly. Van 
Twiller's behavior on a certain occasion evoked a 
sounding rebuke from the clergyman, who called him a 
"child of the Devil" and menaced him with "such a 
shake from the pulpit as would make him shudder." 
The habits and temper of Bogardus himself, it might 
be said, were hardly such as to justify this display of 
ministerial wrath, which his enemies later declared to 
be "unbecoming a heathen, much less a Christian, 
letting alone a minister of the Gospel!" 

For the commercial prosperity of Manhattan van 
Twiller had an especial eye, and here his views coin- 
cided with those of the Company, for the measure now 
to be adopted was probably aimed at the semi-inde- 
pendent "patroons" whose estates lay some distance up 
the North River. In 1633 he heightened the dignity as 
well as the importance of New Amsterdam by conferring 
upon it the so-called "staple right." By virtue of this 
concession vessels carrying merchandise up or down the 
river had to stop at New Amsterdam and pay duties 
whether they discharged their cargoes there or not. 

About this time, furthermore, the first faint promise 
of Greater New York made its appearance in the con- 
nection of New Amsterdam with Brooklyn by means of 
a ferry between Peck Slip and the Wallabout. Near 
the former spot one Cornelius Dircksen tilled a farm. 
At the sound of a horn hung on a convenient tree the 
farmer hastened from his plow, and for a fare of three 
stivers in "wampum," about six cents, (except in the 
case of Indians who had to pay double rates), rowed 
passengers to the Brooklyn shore. 

So far as military arrangements were concerned, the 

governor 



The Story of New A msterda m 11 

governor did not always take due precaution. Captain 
De Vries returning from a voyage to Virginia arrived 
before dawn one morning and found the town fast 
asleep. At daybreak he jokingly fired a salute of three 
guns, whereupon the slumbering garrison tumbled 
suddenly out of bed, "for in sooth they were not accus- 
tomed to have one come upon them so by surprise" and 
ran to their stations. The valiant director general 
brought up the rear, flourishing a pistol in one hand 
while he vainly tried to dress himself with the other. 

Apropos of this military episode another might be 
mentioned wherein the bad example occasionally set by 
van Twiller had a like effect on his subordinates. It 
seems that he held a farewell banquet in honor of 
Captain De Vries who was about to return to the 
fatherland. The festive event took place in a corner of 
the fort overlooking the bay, where the guests might 
enjoy the cooling breezes as they quaffed the bumpers 
of good fellowship. Rendered somewhat exuberant by 
the flow of spirits, alcoholic and intellectual, Van 
Corlear, the trumpeter of the garrison, blew a loud 
blast that made everybody jump. Two of the Com- 
pany's agents forthwith took umbrage at this un- 
seemly conduct, and roundly upbraided the disturber. 
As skilled in fisticuffs as he was in music, Van Corlear 
gave each of his critics a thrashing, whereat they ran 
home for their swords, breathing vengeance against the 
brawny trumpeter. Their rage, however, manifested 
itself, so the record states, "in many foolish words at 
the director's house," and since their valor had time to 
evaporate during the night, when morning came, "they 
feared the trumpeter even more than they sought him." 

Van Twiller, nevertheless, preserved good order in 
New Amsterdam. One Guysbert van Regenslander, 
for drawing a knife and threatening violence, was con- 
demned to throw himself three times from the sailyard 
of a ship; and for slandering the governor Hendrick 
Jansen had to stand at the front door of the fort and ask 
pardon at the ringing of the bell. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of van Twiller's 
administration was his inauguration of private land 

grants 



12 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

grants. In several cases he made these cessions without 
the approval, and even without the knowledge, of the 
Company. Hitherto that corporation had allowed only 
a tenancy-at-will. Under van Twiller, therefore, arose 
the system of private ownership of property on Man- 
hattan. Of these grants two have especial interest. 
In 1636 Roelof Jansen, a former farm superintendent, 
obtained a tract of sixty-two acres, beginning about the 
present Warren Street and extending along Broadway 
as far as Duane Street, thence northwesterly to Canal 
Street, the western boundary roughly coinciding with 
Greenwich Street. This was the origin of the famous 
"Trinity Church property." 

The director general also made some grants to him- 
self. One of them involved a purchase from the 
Indians of "Pagganck," or as the Dutch called it, 
" Nutten Island." The name "Governor's Island," later 
assigned to it and erroneously ascribed to van Twiller's 
ownership, comes from the fact that, in 1698, the 
provincial legislature of New York reserved the island 
"for the benefit and accommodation of his majesty's 
governors and commanders-in-chief" as a military 
station. In 1800 the state of New York ceded it to the 
government of the United States. 

CIFIC SPIRIT 

In view of the rapid growth of the English colonies 
eastward and southward of New Netherland, an en- 
lightened policy would demand that the settlement on 
Manhattan, as the heart of the province, be made more 
than a trading station. So far the Dutch West India 
Company, anxious only for its profits in furs, had con- 
tributed little to the welfare of New Amsterdam. The 
settlement contained a roving, waterside population of 
sailors, longshoremen and traders, including many 
rough and shiftless characters whose main desire was to 
enrich themselves and go back to their native lands. A 
handful of soldiers tenanting a dilapidated fort and 
inclined besides to mutiny, the prevalence of dissension 
within and hostility without, the confusion and irregu- 
larity 



The Story of New A msterd a m 13 

larity resulting from the double capacity of the director 
general, as an officer responsible to the Dutch govern- 
ment and as an agent of a trading corporation desirous 
of promoting its monopoly, were other obstacles to 
progress in the island community. 

The mismanagement of the West India Company had 
become so apparent by 1638 that the Dutch authorities 
resolved to intervene for the establishment of such 
"effective order as should attract" the necessary colo- 
nists to New Netherland. Had the government gone 
further and assumed actual control of the province, the 
plight of New Amsterdam, its representative town, must 
have been radically changed for the better. The only 
step taken was to exert pressure on the Company to 
introduce the needful reforms. Too much had that 
corporation peopled the province with its own depen- 
dents, many of whom returning carried with them noth- 
ing "except a little in their purses, and a bad name for 
the country." The attitude of the States General 
forced the Company to understand how serious the 
situation was. Monopoly of trade had to be abolished 
and legitimate colonization encouraged. 

Accordingly the announcement was made that 
henceforth freedom of trade would be permitted with 
the Company's possessions in North America, provided 
that the traffic were carried on in the Company's 
vessels and rendered subject to the payment of freight 
charges, as well as of export and import duties. On its 
own part the Company agreed to convey all prospective 
colonists at its own cost and to give them a suitable 
amount of land, together with farm buildings, im- 
plements and cattle. The yearly rent demanded was a 
certain amount in money, or its equivalent, and eighty 
pounds of butter. The Company also declared its 
intention to provide and support ministers, school- 
masters, and consolers of the sick. On the other hand 
the emigrants must submit to the local regulations of 
the government in New Netherland, obey the com- 
mands of the Company, and allow all questions and 
differences that might arise to be decided "by the 
ordinary course of justice established in that country 

for 



14 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

for the protection of the good and the punishment of the 
wicked." Under such conditions prosperity, based upon 
private enterprise and created by persons of substance, 
thrift and respectability, might be presumed to follow. 

The successor to van Twiller in the post of director 
general was William Kieft. He was a man of con- 
siderable ability and experience, and possessed a fairly 
good education which he displayed at times by allusions 
to classic authors. As an offset he appears to have been 
burdened with a vast amount of self-conceit, inquisi- 
tiveness and rapacity, the opinion of New Englanders, 
that he was a "discreet and sober person," to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. Though his activity and his 
temperate habits contrasted strongly with the traits of 
his predecessor, on the whole he showed himself to be 
quite as unfit to perform the duties of his office. 

Neither the personal appearance of Kieft nor his 
masterful air and suspicious looks had a reassuring 
effect upon his charges in New Amsterdam when, in the 
spring of 1638, the new governor landed at the floating 
dock, near the foot of the present Broad Street. Author- 
ized by the Company to fix the number of his council, 
he did so in a way that does credit to his ingenuity, 
while it heightened wondrousty his self-importance. 
Though providing for three votes in the council, he 
permitted only two persons to constitute it: himself 
with two votes and Dr. John La Montagne, a French 
Huguenot physician, who had the privilege of always 
being in the minority, with one. Among the other 
officials with whom Kieft surrounded himself were 
Cornelius Van Tienhoven, as secretary, and Ulrich 
Lupoid as the schout fiscal. A year later the function- 
ary last named gave way to Cornelius Van der Huy- 
ghens, a man, we are informed, "not to be trusted on 
account of his drinking, wherein all his science con- 
sists." 

The condition of affairs in New Amsterdam might 
have daunted a ruler of less determination than Kieft. 
The fort almost in ruins, open at every side except at 
the one spot where it had been faced with stone, its 
guns lying prone upon the earth, other public structures 

in 



The Story of New A msterd a m 15 

in dilapidation, one of the three windmills running, the 
second out of repair, the third a wreck blackened by 
fire, the several farms of the Company neglected or 
thrown into pasturage, and their cattle everywhere 
dispersed — such was the forlorn state of affairs that 
confronted the astounded eye of Director General 
Kieft. And when he cast that eye upon the conduct of 
the people entrusted to his paternal care, amazement 
faded before the blast of reform that now swept over 
Manhattan. The local regulations and improvements 
of an autocrat were about to be inaugurated. 

Salutary proclamations were issued forthwith. Writ- 
ten in a clear, bold hand, signed with appropriate 
flourishes, sealed imposingly and affixed in prominent 
places, these manifestoes in behalf of righteous conduct 
awoke the dwellers on Manhattan to a sense of duty, 
the like of which they had not known since the day of 
their arrival on its wooded shores. Having clearly in 
mind the multifarious population of New Amsterdam, 
Kieft forbade rebellion, theft, perjury and calumny; 
exacted diligence and subordination; confined sailors 
to their vessels after nightfall, and compelled the 
inhabitants to show passports before they could leave 
the island. Displaying no partiality for soldiers over 
sailors, he levied fines upon the former for swearing, 
speaking scandal of a comrade, intoxication, absence 
from post, and firing a musket without orders. He also 
forbade the retailing of liquors, except by those who 
sold wine "at a decent price and in moderate quanti- 
ties," and allowed the tapping of beer on Sunday only 
after church hours and before ten o'clock at night. 

Another matter of vital importance to the com- 
munity on Manhattan was the regulation of the 
currency. The specie of the time consisted of a few 
Dutch and foreign coins; but the common medium of 
exchange was beaver skins and "wampum" or "se- 
want." This primitive money, made from the inside of 
shells and strung together in the form of beads, early 
passed current at the rate of four beads for a stiver, or 
five cents. It was difficult to keep it up to the Man- 
hattan standard of quality and value, since anyone who 

could 



16 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

could find the shells could establish a mint of his own. 
Inferior "sewant" speedily appeared in circulation. So 
serious did the evil become that, between 1641 and 
1662, no fewer than twelve ordinances were issued, 
fixing the value of "sewant," punishing its counterfeit, 
making it legal tender, declaring it merchandise, pro- 
viding that it be paid out by measure, exempting it 
from import duties, and even authorizing its debase- 
ment at a certain ratio in stivers. Because there was 
so little actual coin, however, the circulation of the 
inferior grades of shell-money was not prohibited, lest 
"the laborers and boors (small farmers) and other com- 
mon people having no other money would be great 
losers." 

Outside of the realm of proclamation the director 
general gave careful heed to commerce and local 
industry. He caused a small redoubt to be erected on 
one of the headlands of Staten Island, and stationed 
there a few soldiers whose duty it was to notify the 
officials at New Amsterdam, by,hoisting a flag, whenever 
vessels arrived in the lower bay — thus establishing the 
first marine signal-station within the limits of New 
York harbor. In order, also, to remove the abuses in 
the cultivation of that staple commodity, Manhattan 
tobacco, which had injured the "high name it had 
gained in foreign countries," he appointed two in- 
spectors of tobacco. 

All suits at law and all public business transactions 
had to be drawn up by the provincial secretary, and 
duly attested by him. The reason for this arrangement 
the enemies of the governor later ascribed to his desire 
to prevent any testimony from ever being taken against 
him. The provincial secretary, himself an appointee 
of the director, assigned a different motive. "Most of 
the people," he declared, "are country or seafaring 
men, who summon each other frequently before the 
court for small matters, while many of them can 
neither read nor write, nor testify intelligently, nor 
produce written evidence; and if some do produce it, 
it is sometimes written by a sailor or a boor, and is often 
wholly indistinct and repugnant to the meaning of 

those 



THE Story OF New A MSTERDA M 17 

those who had it written or made the statement. Con- 
sequently the director and council could not know the 
truth of matters as was proper, and as justice de- 
manded." 

To encourage the growth of stock raising in conjunc- 
tion with agriculture, Kieft provided for the establish- 
ment of two annual fairs, one for cattle and the other 
for hogs. These he ordered to be held at the "market 
house and plain before the fort," which plain became 
known later as the "Bowling Green." 

Such efforts at promotion, and the comparatively 
large amount of freedom in thought and occupation 
enjoyed by the people of New Amsterdam, attracted 
many strangers. From New England came the folk 
who, disliking its ecclesiastical system, began to seek 
"the southern parts," and from Virginia came redemp- 
tioners, i. e. indented laborers whose term of service 
had expired legally or voluntarily. These persons 
reinforced the governor in his policy of improving the 
conditions of agriculture. They bettered the method 
of raising tobacco, and set out orchards of cherry and 
peach trees. Upon the strangers, however, Kieft 
thought it prudent to impose an oath of allegiance and 
fidelity similar to that exacted from Dutch colonists. 
They must swear "to follow the Director or any one of 
the Council wherever they shall lead; faithfully to give 

instant warning of any treason or other detriment 

that shall come to their knowledge; and to assist to the 
utmost of their power in defending and protecting with 

their blood and treasure the inhabitants against 

all enemies." In every respect the newcomers 

enjoyed the same privileges as Dutchmen. But as the 
number of such persons seemed to increase unduly, in 
1642 the governor saw fit to forbid the inhabitants of 
Manhattan to harbor strangers, or to give them more 
than one meal or a single night's lodging, without 
notifying the authorities and furnishing the names of 
the visitors. So large indeed became the population of 
English residents in New Amsterdam and elsewhere in 
the province, that an official interpreter was appointed in 
the person of George Baxter, an exile from New England. 

The 



18 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

The central position of Manhattan, furthermore, 
offered attractions to many transient visitors, who on 
account of the lack of accommodations elsewhere often 
had to be put up at the director general's house. So 
many of them came that their presence greatly in- 
convenienced that officer, who sometimes could afford 
them but "slender entertainment." Accordingly, in 
1642, he decided to build at the Company's expense a 
"fine hotel of stone," called the city "Harberg" or 
tavern. "It happened well for the travellers," dryly 
remarked Captain De Vries, who had dined with the 
director on several occasions, and doubtless knew 
whereof he spoke. The hotel stood on the bank of the 
East River in front of Coenties Slip, and was later con- 
verted into the "Stadthuys" or city hall. An imposing 
edifice it was for New Amsterdam, with its dimensions 
fifty feet square and its three stories in height, crowned 
by the crow-step gables up which a truly venturesome 
chimney-sweep alone would dare to clamber. Its 
remains still serve as partial foundations for the ware- 
houses at 71 and 73 Pearl Street, and as such are the 
sole architectural relic extant of New Amsterdam. 

In 1643 one Philip Gerritsen became the boniface of 
the tavern, and acquired the right to dispense the 
Company's choice brands of beer and liquors. As a 
means presumably of advertising his establishment, it 
appears that on a certain occasion mine host had in- 
vited a little party to sample his fare, when suddenly 
in strode a crowd of Englishmen, headed by that 
doughty Indian fighter. Captain John Underbill. In 
maudlin tones Underbill sought an invitation to join 
the festive party. On receiving a polite refusal, he 
insisted that one of the Dutchmen drink with 
him and his companions elsewhere. At a second 
refusal, the valiant captain and his crew pulled forth 
their swords and proceeded to carve up the metal 
objects on the tavern shelves, and to slash the door- 
posts, uttering boastful words withal to the terror of 
the ladies, when the schout with a small guard arrived, 
and ordered the roysterers out of the place. Underbill 
shouted: "If the Director came tis well; I would 

rather 



The Story of New a msterd am 19 

rather speak to a wise man than to a fool." Where- 
upon, remarks one of Gerritsen's guests, "in order to 

prevent further mischief we broke up our 

pleasant party before we intended." 

In fulfilment of its promise to display greater care for 
the physical, mental and spiritual wants of the com- 
munity on Manhattan, the Company dispatched two 
surgeons, Gerrit Schult and Hans Kiersted. These, 
together with Dr. La Montagne, furnished an array of 
medical talent sufficient to cope with all the ordinary 
ailments of New Amsterdam. As to educational needs, 
it will be recalled that the first official schoolmaster 
obtained renownfrom his deftness in whitening raiment 
rather than in that of brightening intellects. The new per- 
son selected for this very versatile function had to be of 
"suitable qualifications to officiate as schoolmaster and 
chorister, possessing a knowledge of music, a good 
voice so as to be heard, an aptitude to teach others the 
science, and be a good reader, writer, and arith- 
metician He should be of the reformed religion, 

a member of the church, bringing with him testimonials 

of his Christian character and conduct Whether 

married or unmarried he must not be under twenty-five 
nor over thirty-five." Specifying a few more of his 
needful accomplishments, he had to keep the books for 
the church council, read and pray with the sick, and 
assist the minister by turning the hour-glass in event of 
the sermon exceeding the proper length. A pedagogue 
so accomplished was found in the person of one Jan 
Stevenson who began his labors in 1642. Non-official 
purveyors of knowledge, to be sure, did not have to 
possess such diverse qualifications. They needed only 
a fair amount of teaching ability, a license from the 
civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and in particular a 
talent for extracting tuition fees. One Adrian Jansen 
van Ilpendam started a private school in 1645, and for 
his instruction charged two beaver skins per annum. 
Generally speaking, however, these trainers of youthful 
ideas had to eke out their livelihood by financially more 
advantageous occupations. 

Unfortunately this expansion of educational oppor- 
tunities 



20 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

tunities did not carry with it a corresponding expansion 
of space for school purposes beyond that available in 
private houses. The question of building a suitable 
schoolhouse was agitated in 1642, and, as the record 
expresses it, "the bowl went round a long time"; but 
the edifice was "built with words" only. The contribu- 
tions for the purpose "found their way out," or more 
specifically, were spent by the governor during the 
Indian outbreaks. 

Coincident with the project for erecting a schoolhouse 
was another for building a suitable church. The 
ecclesiastical barn near Pearl Street between Whitehall 
and Broad had become so dilapidated that Captain De 
Vries declared it was a shame that, when the English 
visited Manhattan, they "saw only a mean barn in 
which we preached." "The first thing they build in 
New England after their dwelling houses," urged De 

Vries, "is a fine church — we should do the like We 

have a fine oak wood, good mountain stone, and 
excellent lime which we burn from oyster shells." This 
earnest appeal to civic pride elicited a ready response 
from the director general. But Kieft, who, according 
to De Vries, desired to leave a great name after him, 
put the query: "Who will oversee the work.^" — this 
being a diplomatic method of asking: "Who will start 
a subscription.^" De Vries, just as diplomatically, 
replied that he would give 100 guilders toward so 
worthy an object, provided that the governor himself 
would head the list. Nothing loth Kieft agreed to 
advance a thousand guilders on the Company's account. 

At this juncture a timely event occurred, namely the 
wedding of Domine Bogardus' daughter. Here was an 
excellent opportunity offered to evoke generosity on the 
part of the large number of guests After the "fourth 
or fifth round of drinking," we are told, the director set 
a liberal example of heading the subscription list as he 
had promised. The other guests, light in head and glad 
of heart, proceeded to render themselves light in pocket 
as well, by a proper mindfulness of the Scriptural 
injunction, "Go and do thou likewise"; hence they 
outvied one another in "subscribing richly." To be sure 

when 



The Story of New A msterd am 21 

when some went home they "well repented it," but 
"nothing availed to excuse." 

This episode has been described in a little rhyme 
entitled "How the church of St. Nicholas was built: a 
legend of New Amsterdam." After describing the 
preparations for the wedding, the verses run: 

"It had long been the wish of the good Domine 
To build a new church; for the old one, you see, 
Was a barn, and at one time had been a horse-mill. 
And to preach in it humbled the proud old man's 

will. 
Now, the Domine thought, is the very best time 
To start a subscription, and let each one sign. 
The Director was there in his pomp and his pride. 
With his worthy co-laborer, De Vries, by his side, 
The Stevensens, Schuylers, Bayards, and Van 

Dycks, 
Polhemuses, Cuylers, Van Winkles, Van Wycks, 
De Kays and Van Cortlandts, the Banckers, Van 

Brughs, 
De Meyers, Van Rensselaers, Kierstedes, De 

Trieux, 
Van Horns, and Van Brummels, Van Dusens, Van 

Burens, 
The Brinckerhoffs, Bleeckers, Van Dams, and Van 

Keurens, 
The Dows and Van Breesteedes, Van Gaasbeecks, 

Van Duyns, 
De Witts, and Van Geisons, Van Gansevoorts, 

Pruyns, 
The Visschers, Van Vechtens, and more of renown, 
The fairest and best of the little Dutch town. 

***** 

"Twas the Domine's chance the paper to seize 
And lead off the list with Herr Kieft and De Vries; 
And each in his turn would not be outdone 
And promised to donate a generous sum. 
So the money was raised in a very short time. 
For the wily host managed that each one should 
sign. 

When 



22 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

When the guests realized on the following day 
How much they had pledged they were quite loth 

to pay; 
But as honorable men they were bound by their 

word, 
And it never would do to go back on the Lord." 

The funds having thus been pledged, the director 
general appointed Captain De Vries, Jochem Pietersen 
Kuyter, and Jan Jansen Dam as superintendents of the 
construction of the church. For security against the 
attacks of Indians, Kieft decided to locate the building 
within the enclosure of the fort. This arrangement was 
not at all popular. Since the church was to be built 
chiefly by public subscription, the argument was that it 
ought to be placed where it would be most convenient 
of access. Aside from the significance of this fact, 
showing the spread of population over central and 
southern Manhattan, other formidable objections were 
broached: first, that since the fort was already so small 
the inclusion of a church within its bounds would be 
verily a "fifth wheel to a wagon"; second, that such a 
comparatively lofty structure would take the wind off 
from the gristmill. To this argument of interception 
rejoinder was made that the breezes around Manhattan 
blew from more than one quarter of the compass. 
"Granted that the walls of the church shut off the wind 
from one direction," urged the advocates of location in 
the fort, "cannot the gristmill grind with a southeast 
wind."*" The sturdy defenders of the mill, howlever 
would not be convinced, for they averred the mil had, 
been too long neglected any way. In consequence of 
its being idle, said they, it had become "considerably 
rotten, so that it cannot be made to go with more than 
two arms!" Nonplussed by this argument, their 
opponents took refuge in pointed remarks about the 
readiness with which some people subscribed, and then 
forgot to pay! 

The governor promptly terminated a difference of 
opinion which threatened to wax warm, and made a 
contract with two English stone-masons from Con- 
necticut 



The Story of New a msterda m 23 

necticut for the construction of a church edifice, 72 feet 
long, 50 feet broad, and 16 feet in the height of its walls, 
at a cost of 2,600 guilders. English carpenters also 
covered the roof with oak shingles which, by reason of 
exposure to the weather, soon "looked like slate." In 
the front wall the governor had a stone placed, with this 
commemorative inscription: "Anno Domini 1642, 
while William Kieft was Director General the com- 
munity has had this temple built." When the fort 
was demolished, in 1790, the stone was removed to the 
belfry of the Reformed Dutch Church in Exchange 
Place, where unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 

1835- 

Domine Bogardus forthwith took up his pastoral 
work in a fortress of arms as well as in a fortress of faith, 
Indeed his preaching there seemed to be almost a matter 
of military conformity, as if he were the chaplain of an 
army at once carnal and spiritual. At this time, fur- 
thermore, his relations with the director general were 
rather more friendly than they had been with van 
Twiller. At the governor's special request he had 
remained in New Amsterdam, in order that "the increase 
of God's word might in no manner be prevented." The 
director general on his own part also inculcated a 
wholesome respect for the minister. One woman who 
had dared to ventilate her opinions about the domine 
somewhat too freely was compelled to appear in front 
of Fort Amsterdam at the sounding of the bell, and 
declare in the presence of the governor and council that 
she knew the minister to be an honest and pious man, 
and, with all the emphasis of seventeenth century 
tautology, to confess that she had "lied falsely." 

Under the head of material improvements the gov- 
ernor gave particular heed to placing the Company's 
"bouweries" in order, stocking them with cattle, and 
seeing that they were profitably leased. On account of 
its fine view of the East River he selected Pearl Street, 
then a road along the shore front, as the elite highway 
for the better class of dwellings. He also straightened 
the streets and improved their sanitary condition. 

This reference to streets permits a brief digression 

upon 



24 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

upon the topography of New Amsterdam at the time. 
When the land on Manhattan had little value, when 
private ownership of real property was non-existent, 
and when the population of the island was quite migra- 
tory in character, the first settlers had located them- 
selves pretty much at will. Before the arrival of Kieft 
there had been no regulation of streets, and the thor- 
oughfares had had no names, except those suggested 
by the nature of the ground and the like. Convenience 
in arriving at certain places, and in skirting hills or 
marshes, decided the course of the existing roads or 
lanes. Some even were mere cow-paths. The fact 
accounts for the narrow and crooked streets below Wall 
Street, and for some to the north of that financial 
highway. There were two principal roads, the first 
extending northward from the fort along what is now 
Broadway to the Maagde Paatje or Maiden Lane — so 
named, perhaps, from the practice of the Dutch dam- 
sels of washing clothes in a rill that then ran through it. 
The second road began along the side of the fort at 
Whitehall Street, continued along Stone Street, crossed 
a small stream at Broad Street, where Bridge Street is 
now found, traversed the shore along Pearl Street to 
Hanover Square, and from that point made its way by 
Pearl Street along the river shore to Peck Slip, where the 
ferry to Brooklyn was located. 

Although private ownership of land had begun in the 
time of van Twiller, it was not until 1642 that care in 
the location of boundaries and due regard for symmetry 
in alinement secured the appointment of Andreas 
Hudde as surveyor. Thereafter, when land was allotted 
or conveyed, rods and "morgens" or acres defined its 
limits. In the same year occurred the first recorded 
sale of what might be termed a city lot, no feet in 
length by 30 feet in breadth, and situated on the pre- 
sent Bridge Street, for the price of 24 guilders. Another 
grantee of a lot at the lower end of Broadway was 
Martin Krigier, who built a tavern on what was later 
the site of Burns' Coffee House. Near the corner of 
Pearl and Wall Streets Guleyn Vigne tilled a farm. 
Another one belonging to Jan Jansen Dam north of 

Wall 



The Story of New A msterd a m 25 

Wall Street extended nearly across the island, while 
Secretary Van Tienhoven's agricultural establishment 
stretched from Broadway to a spot between Maiden 
Lane and Ann Street. One Cornelius Clopper plied the 
trade of blacksmith on the corner of Pearl Street and 
Maiden Lane; hence the road passing in front of his 
forge, and traversing some marshy ground, received the 
name of " Smit's Vly " or " Swamp." Fulton Market of 
later times indeed was long known as the " Fly Market." 
Lying still further to the north came the plantation of 
the surveyor, Hudde, near Corlear's Hook, at the foot 
of Grand Street. Certain Virginians, also, George 
Holmes and Thomas Hall, laid out a tobacco plantation 
near "Deutel Bay," the word "deutel," meaning a peg 
by which casks were fastened, and alluding to the peg- 
like shape of the cove formed by the East River at the 
foot of East 45th Street. The English later converted 
the expression into "Turtle Bay." Dr. La Montagne's 
farm lay to the north of this locality, somewhere be- 
tween Eighth Avenue and the Harlem River, and re- 
joiced in the appropriately rustic name of Vriedendael, 
or "Peaceful Valley." In all "ground-briefs," or 
patents for land, however, was inserted a clause that 
"Stuck in the bosom" of everyone. This prescribed 
that the grantee should acknowledge the "noble lords 
of the Dutch West India Company as his masters, and 
should be obedient to the Director and Council and 

should submit to all such taxes and imposts as 

may be imposed by the noble lords." 

Many evidences of wealth, furthermore, among the 
substantial inhabitants of New Amsterdam, are fur- 
nished by the inventories contained in several wills 
probated at this time. One of them enumerates as 
family possessions "forty books; eleven pictures; five 

guns; silver cups, spoons, tankards, and bowls; 

thirty pewter plates; agricultural and brewing im- 
plements; divers specimens of bedding and clothing, 
such as satin, grogram, suits and gloves; a stone house 
covered with tiles; tobacco and outhouses; horses, 
cattle, and pigs." Another tells of "gold hoop rings, 

silver medals and chains; silver brandy cups and 

goblets; 



26 THE HOLLAND SOCIF. TY 

goblets; Spanish leather patterns; a damask furred 
jacket; linen handkerchiefs, with lace, and brass 
warming pans." Quite edifying matter for reading, 
also, had the thousand or more dwellers on Manhattan: 
such as Luther's "Complete Catechism," the "Four 
Ends of Death" and "Fifty Pictures of Resurrection." 

All these signs of prosperity and progress among the 
people of New Amsterdam had been preparing the way 
unconsciously for an assertion of their value to the com- 
munity, which was to assume a form undreamed of by 
the Dutch West India Company or its zealous agent. 
Hitherto, because of their manifest utility, the procla- 
mations of Director General Kieft had been obeyed 
without serious demur. Now, in an evil moment for 
autocrats and corporations, the governor aroused the 
latent sentiment of common interests to forcible ex- 
pression. 

The various measures taken by Kieft to define the 
relations between the white settlers and the Indians had 
been for the most part wise. For example, he had 
forbidden the sale of arms and ammunition to the 
natives. He had ordered all settlers whose lands 
adjoined those cultivated by Indians to enclose their 
farms with suitable fences, hoping thus to obviate a 
frequent complaint of the natives that the white men's 
cattle injured their cornfields. He had warned his 
people also against excessive familiarity with their 
savage neighbors. Yet a foolish act of his own, no less 
than the imprudence of the settlers, brought on a 
catastrophe. 

Under the plea of the great expense caused by the 
maintenance of soldiers and fortifications in New 
Netherland, Kieft proclaimed that the Indians, par- 
ticularly those around Manhattan, "whom we have 
thus far defended against their enemies," should pay a 
tribute of corn, furs and "sewant." In case of their 
refusal to do so, he threatened summary measures "to 
remove their reluctance." 

Whether the director general's plea was sincere, 
whether, as was later charged against him, he was 
"trying to make a wrong record with the Company," or 

whether 



The Story of New A msterda m 27 

whether he simply regarded this step as a brilliant 
opportunity for personal enrichment, may never be 
known. It is highly probable that he expected an 
eventual, if grudging, obedience. Great must have been 
his amazement, therefore, when he received a reply 
from the Indians, couched in their simple and straight- 
forward language, wherein they "wondered how the 
sachem at the fort dared to exact such things from 
them. He must be a very shabby fellow; he had come 
to live in their land when they had not invited him, and 
now he came to deprive them of their corn for nothing. 
The soldiers at the fort did not protect the Indians 
when engaged in war with other tribes. At such a time 
the Indians crept together like cats upon a piece of 
cloth, and could be killed a thousand times before any 
tidings could arrive at the fort. They had allowed the 
Dutch to take possession of the country peacefully; 
they had never demanded anything for it, and therefore 
the Dutch were indebted to the Indians rather than the 
Indians to the Dutch. Moreover the Indians paid full 
price for everything they bought, and there was no 
reason why they should give the Hollanders corn for 
nothing. In conclusion," ran the reply, "if we have 
ceded to you the country you are living in, we yet 
remain masters of what we have retained for ourselves." 

Less influenced by the rumor that the Indians were 
trying to "poison the Director or to enchant him by 
their devilry" than by the manifest temper of the 
savages, Kieft ordered the inhabitants of Manhattan 
to provide themselves with arms and to stand in readi- 
ness for any service. The precaution was justified, for 
this attempted levy of tribute, the hasty punishment of 
certain savages for a theft they had not committed, and 
the murder of a Dutch wheelwright by an Indian near 
Deutel Bay in revenge for the killing of his kinsman by 
some Dutchmen near the "Collect" several years be- 
fore, were the direct causes of the coming war with 
the savages. 

Perceiving that he would be held responsible for the 
consequences of any rash action, the governor deter- 
mined to consult the opinion of the community, and 

request 



28 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

request its advice and approval. This might enable 
him to offset occasional hints that had been made 
about his cowardice. "It was all very well for him," 
some bold spirits ventured to intimate, "him who could 
secure his own life in a good fort out of which he had 
not slept a single night." Accordingly, in August, 1641, 
he summoned all masters and heads of families in 
Manhattan and its vicinity to meet at Fort Amsterdam 
■"there to resolve on something of the first necessity." 
At this first mass meeting on Manhattan the governor 
requested advice as to the best policy to be pursued, his 
motive clearly being to share, if not to shift, responsi- 
bility for any radical treatment of the Indians, or, as 
one contemporary record states, to have the people 
■"serve as cloaks and catspaws." The assemblage pro- 
ceeded to choose "twelve select men" to consider 
Kieft's proposals. This first body of popular represen- 
tatives on Manhattan was composed of Jacques 
Bentyn, Maryn Adriaensen, Jan Jansen Dam, Hend- 
rick Jansen, David Pietersen De Vries, Jacob Stoffel- 
sen, Abram Molenaar, Frederick Lubbertsen, Jochem 
Pietersen Kuyter, Gerrit Dircksen, George Rapelje, and 
Abram Planck. They immediately elected Captain De 
Vries chairman. After suitable deliberation they 
agreed that the murder of the unoffending wheelwright 
ought to be avenged. Accordingly they asked the 
director general to make the necessary preparations, 
and, in particular, to procure a sufficient number of 
coats-of-mail "for the soldiers as well as for the freemen 
who are willing to pay their share of the expenses." 
Since the governor, furthermore, was the military com- 
mander, he ought to lead the expedition. 

Before any aggressive action was taken the Twelve 
Men, voicing the sentiments of a community that had 
remembered at last the free institutions of the father- 
land, petitioned Kieft for a reorganization of the 
Council. The criticism and distrust awakened by the 
practice of the governor in choosing special advisers 
from the inferior agents of the Company, rather than 
from the worthy and competent people at large, explain 
the desire forthwith expressed for a council of at least 

five 



The Story of New A msterd a m 29 

five members, and the redress of a number of other 
grievances. Since the director general had obtained 
popular approval of his expedition against the Indians 
he could aflFord to make a few evanescent promises that 
he speedily forgot. He did not forget, however, to 
indulge in a proclamation thanking the Twelve Men 
for their advice, which would be adopted "with God's 
help and in fitting time"; and prohibited the further 
meeting of any popular assemblies without his express 
command, as tending to dangerous "consequences and 
to the great injury both of the country and of our 
authority." The first manifestation of a civic spirt had 
ended in apparent failure. 

Little having been accomplished in the expedition as 
planned, Kieft, encouraged by the warlike element in 
the community, ordered vengeance to be wreaked upon 
some parties of refugee Indians in the neighborhood, 
who had fled from their tribal enemies, the Mohawks. 
The barbarity that accompanied this massacre of help- 
less fugitives, men, women and children, evoked an 
outburst of ferocity on the part of the savages that 
repaid the debt of slaughter with horrible interest. 
The terror-stricken colonists crowded into the fort as 
the only place of refuge from their fierce enemies. For 
the director general it was not pleasant to suffer the 
wrath of the ruined, the widowed, the fatherless, and 
those bereft of their children. In one short week sorrow 
and desolation had swept over the island community, 
and now it was fitting time "to invoke from Heaven the 
mercy which the Christian had denied the heathen." 
The governor forthwith proclaimed a day of fasting and 
prayer. "We continue to suffer much trouble and loss 
from the heathen, and many of our inhabitants see their 
lives and property in danger, which is doubtless owing 
to our sins," ran the proclamation. Everyone, ac- 
cordingly, was exhorted penitently to supplicate the 
divine mercy, "so that the holy name may not through 
our iniquities be blasphemed by the heathen." The 
director general's inclination to charge the responsibility 
for the calamities upon his advisers,however, caused one 
of them, raging with anger, to confront him with drawn 

sword 



30 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

sword and loaded pistol. "What devilish lies are you 
reporting of me?" cried the would-be assassin, as he 
levelled the pistol. But Kieft's career did not stop then 
and there, for the bystanders interfered. 

Again the governor was forced to consult the views 
of the community. In 1643 he called a popular meeting 
for the election of representatives to discuss the situa- 
tion. This body, composed of eight delegates, had 
quite a cosmopolitan character. Four nationalities 
were present in it: Dutch, in the persons of Jan Jansen 
Dam, Barent Dircksen, Abraham Pietersen and Gerrit 
Wolfertsen; German, Jochem Pietersen Kuyter; Bel- 
gian, Cornelius Melyn, and English, Thomas Hall and 
Isaac Allerton. The board promptly excluded Jan 
Jansen Dam as one of the unlucky advisers of Kieft and 
chose one Jan Evertsen Bout to take his place. The 
Eight Men then resolved to equip a military force to 
cope with the river Indians, proposed the suppression 
of all "taverning" as well as other irregularities, and 
suggested a week of preaching instead; but a praise- 
worthy proclamation to this effect was not faithfully 
observed. 

Once more the Indian conflict raged, and the terrified 
inhabitants of Manhattan flocked to the protecting 
ramparts of a fort become so dilapidated that to a dis- 
gusted critic it seemed "rather a mole-hill than a fortress 
against an enemy." Thereupon the Eight Men made 
a radical demand to the effect that the cargoes of two 
of the Company's ships, then loading for Curasao, 
should be landed and a part of their crews drafted into 
military service; also that the director general should 
obtain help from the English in Connecticut, even if the 
province of New Netherland had to be given them as 
security. In reply to the first part of the demand the 
governor ordered the vessels to clear for Curagao, bear- 
ing in their holds the very commodities that the people 
of Manhattan themselves had raised, and for which the 
island community uttered almost a starving cry. The 
other portion of the demand was acceded to by sending 
two envoys to New Haven, but the English declined to 
do more than supply the Dutch with provisions. 

Exasperated 



The Story of New A msterd am 31 

Exasperated by the conduct of Kieft, and rendered 
desperate by slaughter, destruction and famine, the 
Eight Men sent to the authorities in the Netherlands a 
memorial pathetically describing the plight of New 
Amsterdam and beseeching relief. 

By this time the governor had aroused the hatred of 
the Indians no less than he had excited the detestation of 
the people of Manhattan. Indeed the savages are 
represented as crying daily for "Wouter, Wouter," 
meaning the placid and pacific Wouter van Twiller. 
But as soon as they had "stowed their maize into holes," 
says the record, they resumed their practice of murder- 
ing Dutchmen. The island community, practically 
ruined, could not pay the soldiers at the fort, and the 
Dutch West India Company, rendered bankrupt by 
recent military fiascoes in Brazil, could do nothing. 
Kieft thereupon felt obliged to reconvene the Eight 
Men. To them he proposed the levy of an excise on 
wine, beer, brandy and beaver skins as a means of 
replenishing the treasury. The Eight Men promptly 
opposed the scheme as oppressive, illegal and arbi- 
trary, for which presumption they were roundly 
censured. "I have more power here," declared the 
director general, "than the Company itself; therefore I 
may do and suffer in this country what I please. I am 
my own master, for I have my commission, not from the 
Company, but from the States General." 

The inevitable proclamation followed. In it Kieft 
asserted that, acting on the advice of the Eight Men 
chosen by the community, he had decided to levy the 
excise in question "on those wares from which the good 
inhabitants will suffer the least inconvenience." When 
open discontent was shown, the governor sent for three 
of the Eight Men, but kept them waiting in his hall 
without an interview, so they returned "as wise as they 
came." Probably at the advice of the Eight Men the 
brewers refused to pay the tax, as not authorized by the 
community. This flame of liberty produced by the 
friction of an arbitrary will with the interests of the 
people, the director general strove to quench by copious 

draughts 



32 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

draughts of the taxable beer, confiscated and given as a 
prize to the soldiers. 

Whatever the outcome for the present, the com- 
munity had learned a lesson in political rights, namely 
that of resistance to oppression. Those on the gover- 
nor's side talked of "nothing else but of princely power 

and sovereignty maintaining that the power of 

the Director was greater than that of his Highness of 

Orange in the Netherlands They could do nothing 

amiss, however bad it might be, while those opposed to 
him were always wrong in whatever they did well." 
On its part the community could afford to wait. 

Meanwhile in his reports to the Company Kieft had 
tried to fasten the blame for all the misfortunes upon the 
people of New Amsterdam themselves, and particularly 
so In a "book ornamented with water color drawings," 
which, in the opinion of the Eight Men, contained "as 
many lies as lines." "It would be well," observed the 
Eight Men in a memorial they now sent, praying for the 
governor's recall, "to inquire how the Director General 
can so aptly write since his honor has con- 
stantly resided on the Manhattans, and has never been 
further from his kitchen and bed-room than the middle 
of the aforesaid island." The memorial proved effec- 
tive. Kieft, after a salutary warning from the Com- 
pany, became somewhat milder in his behavior and 
utterances. When in 1645 the Indians asked for peace 
he willingly granted it, and general rejoicing for the 
deed was manifested by a majestic salute of three guns 
from the fort. Summoning the people to assemble 
there at the ringing of the bell and the hoisting of the 
colors, in order to hear the articles of peace read, the 
governor went so far as to assure them that, "if anyone 
could give good advice, he might then declare his 
opinions freely." 

But "the spit was soon turned in the ashes." Aware 
that the Company contemplated his recall, and aware 
also that the community knew it, Kieft was in no 
humor to tolerate personal remarks about him, especi- 
ally from pugnacious persons who threatened to "fix" 
him as soon as he should "take off the coat with which 

he 



The Story of New a msterd a m 33 

he was bedecked by the lords his masters." Those who 
dared to speak too freely he fined and banished without 
appeal to the fatherland, as causing "dangerous con- 
sequences to the supreme authority of this land's 
magistracy." 

At length the domine espoused the popular cause. 
" What are the great men of the country," cried he, "but 
vessels of wrath and fountains of woe and trouble. 
They think of nothing but to plunder the property of 
others, to dismiss, to banish, and to transport to 
Holland." Kieft promptly retorted in kind. He de- 
nounced the minister as a rattler of "old wives' stories 
drawn out from a distaff, as a great cackler, and withal 

a seditious man who sought to excite the people 

against him who was their sovereign ruler." 

Unable, however, to escape the fulminations of clerical 
wrath, the governor absented himself altogether from 
church; and, in order to annoy the domine, encour- 
aged the soldiers "to perform all kinds of noisy plays 
during the sermon, near and around the church, rolling 
nine-pins, dancing, singing, leaping, and other profane 
exercises." As this was ineffectual in lessening the 
domine's anger, he determined to "out-thunder the 
man of God." He therefore ordered the drums to be 
beaten; but even as they rolled, the sonorous voice of 
the minister rose higher and higher and his words 
became still more defiant, until in sheer desperation 
Kieft ordered the cannons fired, for the purpose, says one 
of his indignant opponents, "of going a Maying so that 
a miserable villainy was perpetrated in order to disturb 
the congregation." But even the roar of guns could not 
silence the stentorian voice of the domine and its echo 
in the hearts of his congregation. Then, his patience 
all exhausted, Kieft haled the audacious Bogardus 
before the tribunal of governor and council. "Your 
conduct," snapped the director general, "stirs the 
people to mutiny and rebellion when they are already 
too much divided, causes schism and abuses in the 
church, and makes us a scorn, and a laughing stock to 
our neighbors." Whatever the answer of the domine, 

the 



34 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

the difference appears then to have been settled without 
further ado. 

RISE OF THE TOWN 

In the year of grace, 1647, the people of New Amster- 
dam doubtless dreamed as little of that community's 
future greatness as they were wont to suspect their 
English neighbors of honesty. Be this as it may, they 
certainly learned to distinguish their own welfare from 
the possible success of a trading company. In the past 
their interests had been too much subordinated. 
"Things have gone on so badly and negligently," says 
a remonstrant, "that nothing has ever been designed, 
understood, or done that gave appearance of content to 
the people; but on the contrary, what came from the 

community has been mixed up with the affairs of 

the Company Very great discontent has sprung 

up on all sides against the expense and waste 

Moneys given by taxation have been privately appro- 
priated Pride has ruled when justice dictated 

otherwise, just as if it were disgraceful to follow advice, 
and as if everything should come from one head." The 
community of Manhattan, therefore, was dissatisfied 
with the policy hitherto pursued by the Dutch West 
India Company and its provincial agents. 

Stirred somewhat by the protests of the inhabitants 
themselves, and impelled to action by the warnings of 
the Dutch government, in 1645 the Company deter- 
mined to reorganize the provincial administration in 
New Netherland; and since New Amsterdam was still 
subject in all respects to the director general and his 
council, any change in the ruling body would be of 
much concern. It was accordingly resolved that the 
power should be vested in a supreme council composed 
of a director general, a vice-director, and a schout fiscal, 
or public prosecutor and sheriff. If by this arrange- 
ment the Company intended to modify the autocratic 
regime hitherto in force, and hence to employ the vice 
director and schout fiscal as checks upon the director 
general, it did so only in appearance, for it knew the 
character of the person it now selected for the office of 

governor 



The Story of New Amsterd a m 35 

governor too well to suppose that he would tolerate any 
encroachment upon his authority. That person was 
Peter Stuyvesant. 

This vigorous and autocratic old soldier had filled for 
several years the post of governor in the Company's 
colony of Curagao, and in an attack upon a Portuguese 
island had lost a leg. The missing member he had 
replaced by one of wood. His military career had 
imbued him with a martinet's desire for discipline and 
obedience to orders. A man of great decisiveness and 
strength of character, given over alike to prejudice and 
to passion, sev^ere in morality and haughty in demeanor, 
with no inclination to conventional refinements, de- 
voted to the service of the Company, his superiors, and 
yet thoroughly interested in the welfare of the com- 
munity about to be entrusted to his care. Director 
General Stuyvesant was destined to show that he had a 
heart as big as an ox's and a head that would have set 
adamant to scorn. 

In Stuyvesant's opinion the difference between bad 
government and good government did not lie in the 
contrast between paternal rule and popular control — 
the latter being the sheerest nonsense — but between a 
selfish administration and an unselfish one. This lean- 
ing to paternalism in government was eventually to 
call forth the caustic comment: "the director hath so 
many particular qualities of which not one is serviceable 
in a desirable republic, that he is not fit to rule over 
Turkish slaves in the galleys, much less over free 
Christians." The civic spirit, indeed, that had begun 
to pervade the community under the rule of Kieft 
became especially active when stirred up by the staff 
of an iron will or by the autocratic thumps of a wooden 
leg. And combat as he might, with imperious vigor and 
resolution, the popular efforts to restrain his paternal 
authority, he had to succumb, partially at least, to the 
determination of New Amsterdam that it would obtain 
the privileges known and enjoyed in the fatherland. 
Yet however ostentatious in command and arbitrary 
in his conduct, Stuyvesant was never intentionally 
unjust or capricious, even if a rude warmth of affection 

and 



36 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

and a real tenderness of sympathy concealed beneath a 
rough exterior did make him at times the instrument of 
unscrupulous advisers. If his rule far excelled that of 
his predecessors it was not because he was less of an 
autocrat, but because he had more honesty and more 
sense. Even when compelled by force of circumstances 
to relinquish some of his prerogatives, he remained 
throughout a man of masterful personality. 

As the commissioned "redresser-general" of all griev- 
ances. Governor Stuyvesant arrived at Manhattan in 
May, 1647 — "like unto a peacock, with great state and 
pomp," observes a disgusted contemporary. In joyous 
anticipation of a liberal government the people of New 
Amsterdam fired such profuse salutes as to use up 
nearly all the powder in the fort. Some of the principal 
inhabitants then welcomed him with uncovered heads. 
Stuyvesant kept them standing several hours in this 
fashion while he had his hat on, "as if he were the 
Grand Duke of Muscovy, offering nobody a seat to sit 
down, although he himself had sat down at his ease in a 
chair in order the better to give audience." In this 
posture the new director general proceeded to enlighten 
the people of Manhattan on his principles of govern- 
ment. His utterances were certainly not those of a ruler 
who intended to be guided by public opinion; rather 
did they savor of benign paternalism. Desirous of 
being deferentially addressed as "Lord General" — a 
title "never before known here" says the same indignant 
commentator — Stuyvesant concluded his exposition of 
political science by the assurance: "I shall govern you 
as a father his children for the advantage of the char- 
tered West India Company, and these burghers, and 
this land." Some inkling of forthcoming events might 
be gathered from the order in which these respective 
advantages appear. By way of benediction Stuyvesant 
"under the blue heaven" promised equal justice to all. 
Believing the occasion auspicious, ex-Governor Kieft, 
who had participated in the ceremonies of welcome, 
ventured to offer a few words of thanks to the com- 
munity for their loyalty; but "some spoke out roundly 

that 



The Story of New Amsterd am 37 

that they did not thank him, nor had they reason to do 
so." 

A short time after this popular installation Stuy- 
vesant organized his council. Its members were Van 
Dincklagen, the vice-director; Van Dyck, the schout 
fiscal; Keyser, the commissary; Dr. La Montagne, the 
sole councillor of Kieft's regime; Captain Bryan 
Newton, an English military adventurer who had seen 
service in Curasao, and Van Tienhoven, the provincial 
secretary. In addition to his advisory and other 
powers, the vice-director acted as chief justice of the 
province, with a reservation to the director general of 
final judgment in important cases. Such was the regu- 
lar constituency of the supreme council; but occasion- 
ally other persons, like business agents of the Company, 
prominent sea captains when ashore, and in the event 
of great emergency, the chief citizens of New Amster- 
dam, might be summoned to attend its deliberations. 
The practice of appointing special councillors, it was 
said, insured to the governor a majority he might not 
otherwise obtain — "with their votes to accomplish his 
deviltry, and then advises with his ordinary council." 
The same authority declares that the majority of the 
council stood in absolute awe of the director general. 
Some, like Bryan Newton, were simple and inex- 
perienced in law, and not understanding Dutch, "could 
and would say yes." Others were indebted to the 
governor or to the Company, and hence did not fare 
badly. Indeed one of them, though drawing small 
wages in the capacity of master of equipment, managed 
by strict economy to build a better dwelling-house than 
anybody else. How this happened, says the informant 
in question "is mysterious." 

Of all the members of the council the one who roused 
the greatest amount of popular ire was the secretary, 
Cornelius Van Tienhoven. He is described as "cau- 
tious, subtle, intelligent and sharp-witted," so expert 
in dissimulation "that he appears to be asleep, yet it is 
only in order to bite." More forcibly still he is likened 
to "an evil spirit scattering torpedoes." Said Van 
Dyck, the schout fiscal to whose position Van Tien- 
hoven 



38 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

hoven was later promoted: "Had an honorable person 
taken my place, I should not so much mind it; but here 
is a public, notorious and convicted fellow who has 
frequently come out of the tavern so full of strong drink 
that he was forced to lie down in the street, while the 
fault of drunkenness could not easily be imputed to 
me." Even worse offences were charged against this 
clever rascal, who appears to have exercised over Stuy- 
vesant that occult and mysterious influence of the in- 
ferior over the superior mind. Not for a moment, 
however, is it to be supposed that the director general 
was a mere instrument in the hands of his secretary. 
To quote from contemporary testimony of what went 
on before the Director and his council: "If anything 
was said before the Director more than pleased him, 
very wicked and spiteful words were returned. Those 

who made it their business to speak to him were, 

if he were in no good fit, very freely berated as clowns 
and bear-skinners." Indeed he "made it a personal 
matter against those who looked him in the eye." Such 
overbearing conduct frightened those who did not 
stand well with him from bringing matters before his 
court, since "whoever had him opposed had as much 
as the sun and moon against him." In this case he 

"bursts out in such a fury and makes such 

gestures that it is frightful yea, he rails out fre- 
quently at the councillors with ill words which 

would better suit the fish-market than the council 

chamber But what shall we say else, of a man 

whose head is troubled and who has a screw loose.''" 
From the outset of his official career in New Amster- 
dam his adversaries acknowledged that Stuyvesant was 
ever "busy building, laying masonry, making, breaking, 
repairing and the like; but generally in matters of the 
Company." Nor does he appear to have been back- 
ward in his own behalf. "The Director is everything," 
complained his critics, "and does the business of the 

whole country, having several shops himself He 

is a brewer, is a part owner of ships, a merchant and a 
trader." But with all his multifarious interests Stuy- 
vesant did not forget the welfare of Manhattan. In 

order 



The Story of New A msterda m 39 

order to promote it, he became addicted to the procla- 
mation habit like his predecessor, although with rather 
more effective results. 

The plight of New Amsterdam assuredly called for 
improvements. Few were the "bouweries" under 
cultivation. Disorder and discontent roamed apace. 
Armed with a number of instructions from the Com- 
pany, among which were commands to repair the fort, 
encourage the general planting and settlement of 
Manhattan, and concentrate colonial trade at New 
Amsterdam by all available means, Stuyvesant entered 
briskly upon his task. One of the first of his ordinances 
dealt with the observance of the Sabbath. It runs: 
"Whereas we have observed and remarked the in- 
solence of some of our inhabitants who are in the habit 
of getting drunk, fighting and smiting each other on 
the Lord's day of rest in defiance of the magis- 
trates, to the contempt and disregard of our person 
and authority, to the great annoyance of the neighbor- 
hood, and finally to the injuring and dishonoring of 

God's holy laws and commandments we do 

charge, command and enjoin all tapsters, and inn- 
keepers, that on the Sabbath before two o'clock 

in the afternoon, no liquors may be sold except to 
persons travelling and to daily boarders that may from 
necessity be confined to their place of abode, under 
penalty of being deprived of their occupations, and 
fined six guilders for each person who shall have run up 
a score. Nor shall there be any selling after the ringing 
of the bell about nine o'clock." Also, for prudential 
reasons, "the selling, dealing out, or bartering in any 
way whatsoever, of strong drink to the Indians, or of 
permitting the same to be fetched by the mug directly 
or indirectly, even though it may be the third or fourth 
person," was absolutely prohibited under a severe 
penalty. Irregularity in trading, which injured the 
business of the Company as well as tended to interrupt 
the good understanding with the Indians, was likewise 
forbidden. Additional solicitude for the revenues of 
the Company revealed itself in port regulations designed 
to prevent smuggling. All vessels of a certain tonnage 

had 



40 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

had to anchor henceforth under the guns of the fort 
near the " hand-board "at Coenties Slip ; while those of 
a larger tonnage should locate themselves a few rods 
higher up the East River opposite the "Smits Vly," or 
South William Street. For violations of marine ordi- 
nances, indeed, the director general was much disposed 
to confiscate the offending craft — a fact that crippled 
commerce somewhat and provoked great dissatis- 
faction. 

Nor had Stuyvesant an eye for the management of 
trade alone: his aesthetic sense was shocked by the 
untidiness and lack of symmetry that marked New 
Amsterdam. Pig-pens and chicken-coops in front of 
otherwise respectable residences, and the presence of 
domestic animals of the larger sort wandering non- 
chalantly about the crooked streets, were offences 
against the canons of a well-ordered community which 
must be removed. The governor, accordingly, ap- 
pointed three inspectors of buildings who were to cor- 
rect the straggling fence and the zigzag street by 
restricting houses and house-lots to their proper limits, 
and by securing improvement of lots within a given 
period. To check the migrations and depredations of 
cattle, the director general commanded the inhabitants 
to put all their plantations into good fence, and author- 
ized the construction of a pound for the harboring of 
stray animals. Finally, in order to replenish the 
treasury, and thereby to facilitate the construction of 
still more "laudable and necessary works," the gov- 
ernor saw fit to reimpose the excise on wines and 
liquors — much to the disgust of certain inhabitants who 
declared that "in a thousand ways it was sought to 
shear the sheep, though the wool was not yet grown." 
For the present at least Stuyvesant ignored the popular 
disapproval and turned to the performance of other 
serious duties. 

It appears that Kuyter and Melyn, two of the Eight 
Men who had upheld the interests of New Amsterdam 
against the autocratic regime of Kieft, had the temerity 
to lay before Stuyvesant a formal arraignment of that 
administration, with a request for an investigation, on 

the 



The Story of New Amsterdam 41 

the basis of which they intended to take legal action in 
Holland. But if the rule of a previous director general 
should be subjected thus to popular condemnation, the 
same disposition might be made of his own. Should 
such a precedent be created, remarked Stuyvesant, 
"will not these cunning fellows, in order to usurp over 
us a more unlimited power, claim and assume in con- 
sequence even greater authority should it turn 

out that our administration may not square in every 
respect with their whims.'"' "Forsooth," continued he, 
"these brutes may hereafter endeavor to knock me 
down also; but I will manage it so now that they will 
have their stomachs full for the future." He therefore 
affected to regard Kuyter and Melyn, though acting as 
prosecutors in behalf of the Eight Men, as merely 
private individuals engaged in a suit against Kieft. 
Otherwise it would be the crime of treason "to unite 
against the magistrates, whether there was cause or 
not." Kieft, accordingly, felt emboldened to come 
forward and deny absolutely the charges made by his 
accusers; and, says the aggrieved narrator, "his bare 
denial availed more than the community's men proved." 
The result was that the governor and council rendered 
judgment upon the unlucky Melyn and Kuyter in- 
stead. The indictment stated that they had opposed 
and violated justice, threatened Director General Kieft 
with the gallows and the wheel; denied any subjection 
to the governor; called that officer a "duyvelkop" or 
"devil-head," and the greatest liar in the country; 
uttered mutinous and seditious words; and, to crown 
all, had shaken their fingers at the chief magistrate. 
A great legal writer, declared Stuyvesant, "hath held 
that he who threatens a magistrate or a clergyman even 
by a frown is guilty of assaulting him; how much more 
guilty then if he shakes his finger at him.'"' In the 
opinion of Stuyvesant and his council such offences were 
of great and serious importance, and not to be toler- 
ated "in a well-ordered and governed republic, it being 
a matter of very evil consequence." The penalties of 
banishment and heavy fines were thereupon visited 
upon the popular tribunes. They also received a 

gratuitous 



42 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

gratuitous warning against an appeal to the Dutch 
government. "If I knew, Melyn," said the director 
general grimly, "that you would divulge our sentence 

I would cause you to be hanged immediately on 

the highest tree in New Netherland." That this 
prohibition of appeals from his decision to the home 
government was a part of his general policy, appears 
still more strongly on another occasion when he re- 
marked: "It may during our administration be con- 
templated to appeal; but if anyone should do it, I will 
make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland, 
and let him appeal in that way." 

This business disposed of, the needs of the treasury 
and the possibility of another Indian attack forced the 
governor, though sorely against his will, to allow a 
certain amount of popular representation in govern- 
ment. At the advice of the council he ordered an 
election to be held in which the inhabitants of New 
Amsterdam and vicinity should choose eighteen "of the 
most notable, reasonable, honest and respectable per- 
sons among themselves." From this number the direc- 
tor general and the council would select nine, the 
particular function of whom, after their powers and 
duties had been carefully defined, was to advise and 
assist when called upon. 

However limited their activities, the appearance of 
the Nine Men as an institution marked an appreciable 
advance toward local self-government and toward 
keeping arbitrary power within bounds. The assem- 
blies of Twelve Men and of Eight Men had been called 
by Kieft to consider definite things, and had performed 
certain temporary services, whereas the board of Nine 
Men as now constituted might fairly be regarded as a 
more or less permanent body. To be sure it could meet 
only at the summons of the director general, and the 
hazardous experiment of electing the members by that 
"wavering multitude" known as the people was tried 
but once. Thereafter, at its annual meeting in Decem- 
ber, the board should nominate a double number of 
persons from whom the governor would fill the vacan- 
cies caused by retiring members. Despite the restric- 
tion. 



The Story of New a msterd a m 43 

tion, this practically self-perpetuating body of nine 
represented with considerable ability the interests of 
the people, became an important element in the admin- 
istration, and hastened the rise of the town of New 
Amsterdam. The names of the original Nine were: 
Augustine Heermans, Arnoldus van Hardenburg, Go- 
vert Loockermans, Jans Jansen Dam, Jacob Wolfertsen 
van Couwenhoven, Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, Michael 
Jansen, Jan Evertsen Bout, and Thomas Hall. 

The business laid before the first meeting of the 
board concerned repairs to the fort, the erection of a 
school-house, toward the expense of which the Company 
would contribute in order to promote the "glorious 
work," the completion of the church, and the preven- 
tion of fire. Though several of these measures involved- 
public taxation, the Nine Men approved all of them, 
except that relating to the fort. Since the community 
already had to pay customs duties, excises and tolls for 
grinding grain, the board maintained that the cost of 
repairing the fort ought to come out of the Company's 
revenues. The first session thus ended without serious 
dissension, even if the matter of the fort was "left 
sticking between them." 

Nor was this the sole cause of discontent. Popular 
disapproval manifested itself against the collection of 
debts due to the Company while the claims of colonists 
for wages and grain continued unpaid. Public opinion 
criticised the high customs duties and the readiness with 
which the director general seized suspected vessels. 
His traffic, moreover, with the Indians, which enabled 
him to sell them ammunition, while withholding the 
privilege from the people themselves, awakened so 
much indignation that, had Stuyvesant not produced 
his instructions from the Company authorizing the 
official sale in moderate quantities, and thereby calmed 
the fiery spirits in the community, "something extra- 
ordinary might have happened." 

When the director general summoned the next 
meeting of the Nine Men, therefore, he found them 
ready with complaints and with the suggestion of 
contrasts between the "desolate and ruinous" state of 

New 



44 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

New Amsterdam and the flourishing circumstances of 
its New England neighbors. The governor admitted 
the suggestion but asserted that he had only obeyed the 
Company's orders. The Nine Men proposed to dis- 
patch a remonstrance to the Dutch government. Stuy- 
vesant demanded the right to censor the message; but, 

as the board would not consent, "the matter fell 

asleep" for a while. The Nine Men then asked for 
permission to confer with their constituents, a request 
which the director general promptly denied, but which 
denial they as promptly ignored. Such audacity made 
Stuyvesant wrathful beyond measure. Not satisfied 
with verbal denunciation of the Nine Men and their 
abettors as "clowns, rascals, liars, rebels, usurers, 
spendthrifts and the like," he brought suits against the 
ringleaders, seized the rough draft of a memorial to the 
Dutch government drawn up by Adrian Van der 
Donck, who had now become one of the Nine Men, and 
threw that representative into prison. 

Perhaps the governor's arbitrary conduct in this case 
had some personal justification. The memorial con- 
tained a few pointed remarks like: "Godly, honorable 
and intelligent rulers" should be provided "who are not 
very indigent, or indeed are not too covetous"; for a 
"covetous governor makes poor subjects," and a "good 
population will be the consequence of a good govern- 
ment." At all events Van der Donck was soon sum- 
moned before a special council, but he could not "make 
it right in any way." Meanwhile the judgment against 
Kuyter and Melyn had been reversed by the Dutch 
government. They returned in triumph, and, desiring 
that they should be "rung in" as they had been "rung 
out," asked that their official vindication be read by 
some of the Nine Men before the community assembled 
in the church. This the director general felt obliged to 
grant, but he took care to notify the domine that other- 
wise he should not read from the pulpit any papers 
alluding to the government unless they had been 
previously approved. 

The memorial of the Nine Men was accordingly com- 
pleted and sent to Holland in charge of three of their 

own 



The Story of New A msterda m 45 

own number. Among other things the Nine Men 
petitioned the States General to assume direct control 
of New Netherland, and to provide for the erection of a 
popular government, such as that existing in the Eng- 
lish colonies, "where neither patroons, nor lords, nor 
princes are known, but only the people." The memorial 
contained a statement relative to the need of a public 
school in New Amsterdam. This should have not fewer 
than two good masters, so that "first of all in so wild a 
community where there are many loose people, the 
youth be well taught and brought up, not only in read- 
ing and writing, but also in the knowledge and fear of 
the Lord." An almshouse and an orphan asylum, also, 
were mentioned as desirable institutions for Manhattan. 
With the desire of the Nine Men for an improvement 
in educational facilities the director general was in full 
accord. At the time they sent the memorial Stuyvesant 
requested the church authorities at Amsterdam to 
provide New Amsterdam with a "pious, well-qualified, 
and diligent" schoolmaster. One William Vestens 
appears to have met these requirements, and in con- 
Junction with the local talent furnished by one Jan 
Cornelissen, began the task of stimulating the youthful 
intellect in Manhattan. The latter individual speedily 
developed traits of laziness and a particular fondness 
withal for the use of "hot and rebellious liquors," so his 
educational career came to a timely end. The Com- 
pany further agreed to set aside a suitable amount of 
space in the Town Tavern for a school-room; but for 
some years the authorities at New Amsterdam seem to 
have found it impracticable to oust the loungers who 
had long puffed their pipes, tippled their beer, and 
dozed in many a convenient nook. These self-appointed 
mentors of the community did not like to have their 
profound deliberations upon the religion and politics 
of New Amsterdam disturbed by the presence of round- 
eyed school children sitting solemnly on the narrow 
benches that ran along the wall, and perhaps, like their 
youthful posterity, stealing anon a furtive glance of 
admiration at the bold scapegrace, "zotscap" on head, 
who stood in the dunce's corner. 

The 



46 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

The care of souls was a matter of even greater Interest 
tlian the provision of schools. This laudable work was 
entrusted to Domine Johannes Backerus, who suc- 
ceeded Domine Bogardus in the pulpit of the church 
militant within the fort, at a salary of 1400 guilders. 
For some reason he appears to have become dissatisfied 
with his pastoral charge in New Amsterdam, and ac- 
cordingly to have departed in 1649. One might seek 
the reason for his leaving in an utterance of the gov- 
ernor, elders and deacons, expressed shortly afterwards, 
to the effect that an "old, experienced, and godly 
minister" was desirable, "to the end that the very 
bewildered people might not be left in destitu- 
tion." Fortunately Domine Megapolensis who had 
just come from up the river on his way back to Holland 
was induced by Stuyvesant to remain in New Amster- 
dam, partially on the plea that children were every 
Sunday presented for baptism, "sometimes one, some- 
times two, yea sometimes three and four together," and 
partially for a consideration of 1200 guilders a year. 
In 1652, also, in response to the demands of cosmopoli- 
tan growth, came another minister, the Reverend 
Samuel Drisius, who was able to preach in three lang- 
uages, Dutch, French and English. 

On their own part the director general and the 
council ably seconded spiritual effort by Sabbath legis- 
lation, providing that "in the afternoon, as in the fore- 
noon, there should be preaching of God's Word, and 
the usual exercises of Christian prayer and thanks- 
giving" which all officers, "subjects, and vassals 

were requested and charged to frequent and attend." 
At the same time they forbade all taverning, fishing, 
hunting, and other usual occupations to be carried on 
during divine service. Stuyvesant himself set a sonor- 
ous example of piety when he "sighed during the sermon 
so that he was heard by the whole church." The gov- 
ernor and council, furthermore, opposed any encroach- 
ment of civil upon ecclesiastical functions, for, when the 
proposition came up to appoint two orphan-masters, 
they declared that it was the business of the deacons to 

"keep 



The Story of New Amsterdam 47 

"keep their eyes open and look after widows and 
orphans." 

Solicitude having thus been displayed for the minds 
and souls of the people of New Amsterdam, the 
director general and the council hearkened to the com- 
plaints of certain quasi-medical practitioners who 
manufactured and sold pills and "Vienna drink" (a 
compound of rhubarb, senna and poit wine), and who 
resented the competition on shore of shrp-barbers in the 
sometimes truly surgical art of shaving. To these 
complaints the authorities replied: "On the petition of 
the chirurgeons of New Amsterdam that none but they 
be allowed to shave," it is understood "that shaving 
doth not appertain exclusively to chirurgery, but is an 
appendix thereto; that no man can be prevented 
operating on himself nor to do another the friendly act, 
provided it is through courtesy, and not for gain, which 
is hereby forbidden. It is further orderedthat ship- 
barbers shall not be allowed to dress any wounds nor 
administer any potions on shore without the previous 
knowledge and special consent of the petitioners." 

In this connection it might be mentioned that, in 
1653, the governor and the council had to determine 
whether certain medicines were liquors and hence 
liable to an excise tax. One Peter de Feher, it seems, 
had petitioned them for permission to sell a decoction 
prepared by him for purely medicinal use. Since the 
applicant claimed many curative properties for his 
"wonderful water," the authorities granted the request, 
albeit with some misgivings. Aware of the propensity 
of their fellow men at times to value liquors for medici- 
nal and other purposes, they expressed some doubt as to 
the legality of their consent, since "brewers and dis- 
tillers were usually not permitted to sell at retail." 

The subject, indeed, was only a minor phase of a very 
general question. Previous ordinances having been 
disregarded, Stuyvesant and the council proceeded to 
issue a comprehensive one that thoroughly exposed the 
evils of the liquor traffic. It lamented the fact that the 
"easy profits flowing" from this kind of business "divert 

and seduce many from their primitive calling and 

they 



48 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

they devote themselves to tapping so much so 

that almost one full fourth part of New Amster- 
dam hath become houses for the sale of brandy, tobacco 
and beer." No new tavern, therefore, was to be opened 
without the unanimous consent of the governor and the 
council. Existing innkeepers had to take up some other 
business at the expiration of four years, without the 
right of transference; they must report all cases of 
brawling to the authorities, and must maintain decent 
houses for the adornment of New Amsterdam. Nor did 
the possibility of pretending to supply a meal to those 
who wished to drink at unseasonable hours escape the 
vigilant observation of Stuyvesant and his councillors. 
"Whereas we notice and see," said they, "that former 
ordinances issued against the defraudations and smug- 
glings practised with beer are not observed, we 

hereby command and order that no inhabitant 

shall be allowed to tap, sell, or give away beer, wine, or 
strong water by the small measure .... to table-boarders 
whom they may pretend to board, under which pretext 
we have seen many frauds perpetrated." 

In addition to the drink problem the regulation of the 
food supply demanded attention. The temporary 
scarcity of food and the nefarious practices of bakers 
led to the official injunction that bakers should make 
their bread of the "standard weight of the Fatherland, " 
and should use "naught else than pure wheat and rye 
flour as it comes from the mill." The Indians around 
Manhattan, possessing fastidious palates, and pre- 
ferring white bread to the ordinary black sort, paid for 
it in perfect sewant which the poor Europeans could 
not do. Because the "Indians and barbarous natives" 
were thus "better accommodated than the Christians," 
the director general and the council not only pre- 
scribed the manner of baking the staff of life, but fixed 
its price, and even forbade the sale of white bread or 
cakes. This they subsequently modified by limiting the 
prohibition to white cakes and cracknels. In order, 
also, to forestall any dearth of bread by reason of a poor 
harvest, they forbade under such circumstances the 
brewingof wheat and the exportation of bread and grain. 

Trade 



The Story of New a msterda m 49 

Trade and real estate also, came up for consideration. 
In order to protect the business men of the island, "who 
by their freehold and birth are obliged to bear all the 
burdens," against the hurtful competition of merely 
transient traders, and to lessen the consequent drain on 
the supply of money, Stuyvesant and the council 
prescribed a permanent residence of three years and the 
possession of a "decent and habitable tenement" as 
prerequisites to the right of trade. Every Monday was 
set aside as a market-day, and an annual kirmess or 
fair to last ten days was established. Business, how- 
ever, could not flourish as it should until the measures of 
size, weight and value had received the necessary 
regulation. "It is believed," remarks a contemporary, 
"that some" persons "of large consciences have two 
sets of weights and measures"; hence the authorities 
resolved to systemize matters by compelling the use of 
Amsterdam standards. Observing, moreover, that a 
large amount of the sewant in circulation was loose, 
unperforated, badly finished, and broken, or else made 
of stone, bone, glass, mussel-shells, horn and wood, the 
director general and the council demonetized such se- 
want, and declared the genuine article, when properly 
strung, to be a legal tender at an ascertained rate in 
stivers. 

These local efforts to promote the economic welfare 
of New Amsterdam the Company supplemented by its 
orders to Stuyvesant to stimulate commerce, by which 
means "must the Manhattans prosper," its population 
increase, and its trade and navigation flourish. When 
the ships of New Amsterdam "ride on every part of the 
ocean, then numbers now looking thither with eager 
eyes will be allured to embark for it." Such was the 
prophecy addressed by the merchants of Amsterdam to 
the merchants of Manhattan when New Amsterdam 
was a community of a thousand souls. 

For the protection of real estate owners and their 
property the director general and the council framed 
two appropriate ordinances. The first declared that, 
since contracts for land on Manhattan had become 
frequent of late, and in order to guard against fraud in 

the 



50 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

the future, all sales of real estate must receive the 
approval of the authorities. The second ordinance 
decreed that, since most of the houses in New Amster- 
dam were built of wood and thatched with reeds, some 
even having wooden chimneys, and that since the people 
had been careless in not keeping their chimneys clean, 
it had been decided to appoint four fire-wardens "to 
visit and inspect" the chimneys of all houses between 
the fort and the "Fresh Water," or the "Collect," i. e. 
between Bowling Green and Centre Street, approxi- 
mately, at the present time. If the negligence of its 
owner caused a house to burn down, he was to be fined 
25 guilders, and the proprietors of unclean chimneys 
were to be mulcted in the sum of three guilders, these 
amounts being devoted "to the maintenance of fire- 
ladders, hooks, and buckets." In 165 1, indeed, Stuy- 
vesant himself took such a personal interest in real 
estate that he purchased his famous "bouwerie" or 
farm, together with a dwelling house, barn, six cows, 
two horses and two young negroes. Bounded by what 
are today Third Avenue and the East River, Sixth and 
Sixteenth Streets, it furnished a name to one of New 
York's most cosmopolitan thoroughfares — the Bowery. 
Turning from these acts of the provincial govern- 
ment to the events immedi ately preceding the rise of 
New Amsterdam as a town, of all the articles contained 
in the remonstrance laid by the Nine Men before the 
authorities in Holland the most important one was that 
which requested the establishment of a "suitable 
burgher government" on Manhattan, "such as their 

High Mightinesses should consider adapted and 

resembling somewhat the laudable government of the 
Fatherland." Brooklyn and Gravesend had already 
obtained this privilege on a small scale, but since the 
Dutch West India Company had reserved Manhattan 
as the seat of its provincial governor and his council, the 
local affairs of New Amsterdam had been managed by 
these officials alone. Although the representations of 
the Nine Men had induced the Dutch government, in 
1650, practically to order the Company to grant New 
Amsterdam a separate administration, the command 

had 



The Story of New A msterd a m 51 

had not been obeyed. However disadvantageous on the 
whole both for the Company and for the island com- 
munity the prevailing system might be after the growth 
of New Amsterdam had made it worthy of a separate 
government, the dread of possible friction between 
provincial and town authorities prevented for a while the 
municipal incorporation so much desired. 

Meanwhile Stuyvesant had continued to wrangle with 
the Nine Men. So threatening did the attitude of some 
aggrieved spirits become that the council decreed that 
the director general should be regularly attended by a 
bodyguard of four halberdiers. Backed chiefly by the 
English element in the community, Stuyvesant de- 
prived the Nine Men of their official pew in church, and 
expelled the vice-director from the council board for a 
satire against him, "stuck in the poor-box." "Our 
great Muscovy Duke," wrote the indignant vice- 
director to Van der Donck in Holland, "keeps on as of 
old — something like the wolf, the longer he lives the 
worse he bites." 

At length even Stuyvesant himself believed that the 
time had come for New Amsterdam to be invested with 
separate powers of government, and informed the 
Company to that effect. Acting under pressure from 
the authorities in the Netherlands, in April, 1652, that 
corporation replied as follows: "We have already con- 
nived as much as possible at the many impertinences of 
some restless spirits in the hope that they might be 
shamed by our discreetness and benevolence; but 
perceiving that all our kindnesses do not avail, we must 
therefore have recourse to God, Nature and Law. We 

accordingly charge and command your Honors 

whenever you shall certainly discover any clandestine 
meetings, conventicles or machinations against our . . . . 

government that you proceed against such malig- 

nants in proportion to their crimes. We remark in 
many representations, though, of malversants that 
some hide themselves under this cloak; though we must 
believe and even see that they have not in reality so 
suffered; yet to stop the mouth of all the world we have 
resolved, on your Honor's proposition, to permit you 

hereby 



52 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

hereby to erect... ...a bench of justice formed as 

much as possible after the custom of this city (Amster- 
dam) And we presume that it will be sufficient 

at first to choose one schout, two burgomasters and 
five schepens (aldermen)." These officers were to form 
a municipal court from the decision of which an appeal 
should lie to the provincial governor and council. In 
the choice of these magistrates, said the Company, 
"every attention must be paid to honest and respectable 
individuals who we hope can be found among the 
burghers." 

New Amsterdam was now to obtain the municipal 
government for which the island community had striven 
so long. But what was actually granted did not in 
fact resemble "as much as possible" that of old Amster- 
dam. At the outset Stuyvesant declared that the 
creation of the new town government diminished in no 
respect his own authority as director general. He con- 
strued the word "choose," as it appeared in his in- 
structions from the Company, in such a manner as to 
reserve to himself the absolute appointment of the city 
magistrates, contrary to the practice of popular election 
in the fatherland. He insisted upon the prerogative of 
himself and the council "to make ordinances and to 
publish particular interdicts" affecting New Amster- 
dam. He retained the right to collect and dispose of 
the municipal revenues. He even asserted his intention 
to preside at the meetings of the town fathers whenever 
in his opinion such a course was desirable, and in fact 
he often assisted at their deliberations, thumping 
imperiously on the floor with his wooden leg, when 
things did not go as he wished. 

On February 2, 1653, Stuyvesant inaugurated the 
municipal system in New Amsterdam by the appoint- 
ment of Arendt van Hatten and Martin Krigier as 
burgomasters, Paulus Leendertsen van der Grist, 
Maximilian van Gheel, Allard Anthony, William 
Beeckman, and Peter Wolfertsen van Couwenhoven as 
schepens; while the Director's prime favorite, Cornelius 
van Tienhoven was to add to his duties of provincial 
schout or sheriff those of the town as well, and Jacob 

Kip 



The Story of New A msterd a m 53 

Kip was made city clerk. Of the burgomasters, van 
Hatten was a wealthy trader and Krigier thecaptain of 
the burgher guard and the proprietor of ^ tavern 
opposite the Bowling Green. Of the schepens,. Van der 
Grist, a retired sea captain who had a fine house on 
Broadway below the present site of Trinity Church, 
plied the vocation of grocer and haberdasher, and van 
Couwenhoven was a tobacco planter. Beeckman, 
whose name is perpetuated by William and Beekman 
Streets, was a tanner, and owned besides several farms, 
one of which lay in the neighborhood of a swamp now 
traversed by Beekman Street. Tenanted as of yore by 
tanners, the section is still called the "Swamp." 
Anthony was the agent of a large firm in Holland, and 
kept a store in the "ecclesiastical barn" formerly 
erected by Director General van Twiller. Here he 
carried on a retail as well as a wholesale business, for it 
is said that on a certain occasion he sold a hanger to 
Jan van Cleef "for as much as Anthony's fowls could 
eat in six months." Jacob Kip tilled a farm of 150 acres 
fronting on the East River at Kip's Bay, at the foot of 
the present 34th Street. 

The burgomasters and schepens announced that they 
would hold their regular sessions every Monday at nine 
in the building hitherto known as theTownTavern,but 
henceforth to be named the "Stadthuys" or town hall, 
at Coenties Slip. After the meeting had been opened 
by prayer, the magistrates proceeded to civic business. 
Record books were formally begun, and fines were 
imposed upon delinquent members: six stivers for 
tardiness of a half hour, twelve for tardiness of an hour, 
and forty for total absence. The burgomasters and 
schepens received no compensation other than the 
distinguished consideration of the community. A pew 
of honor having been set apart for them, every Sun- 
day morning, preceded by that versatile functionary 
the bell-ringer, court messenger, grave-digger, chorister, 
and janitor of the town hall, who bore in addition to his 
other burdens the magisterial cushions of state, the city 
fathers assembled at the town hall and, with 
Director General Stuyvesant at their head, marched 

in 



54 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

in solemn procession to church. As a body the burgo- 
masters and schepens issued municipal ordinances and 
tried local suits and offences. The schout was presumed 
to execute their commands and also to serve as public 
prosecutor. 

One of the early ordinances of the town fathers 
placed a suitable restraint upon importunate office- 
seekers the gratification of whom might influence 
politics. "Teunis Kraey orally requests, as he is an old 

burgher, that he may have the office of city crier It 

is answered: the petitioner may proceed after 

the election, and then his prayer will be attended to." 
Another ordinance was aimed against possible Gretna 
Greens for lovelorn swains and lasses. It recited that 
the proceedings of the court of Gravesend in "setting 
up and affixing bans of matrimony" between persons 
who had their domicile in and about the town of New 
Amsterdam "greatly tend to the infringement on the 
privilege and jurisdiction of this city, and prepare a way 

whereby sons and daughters unwilling to obey 

their parents and guardians will, contrary to their 
wishes, secretly go and get married in such villages and 
elsewhere." The magistrates, therefore, took action 
to maintain the jurisdiction of New Amsterdam and to 
prevent unlawful marriages. 

Among the early suits at law decided by the burgo- 
masters and schepens was one in which Roelof Jansen 
sued Philip Geraerdy for damages in loss of time and in 
surgeon's fees arising from the alleged fact, as Jansen 
stated, that the defendant's dog had "bitten him in the 
day time." On his own behalf, the defendant declared 
that he had already tried to salve the wound by a gift 
of four pounds of butter, carried by his own wife, and 
was willing besides to give the plaintiff four guilders 
"as a charity." The judgment was so ordered. 

As war was raging between England and the Nether- 
lands at the time New Amsterdam secured municipal 
government, the infant town was fortunate in having a 
man of military training as its guardian. The problem 
of defending Manhattan and the province at large 
against a possible attack by English neighbors, there- 
fore, 



The Story of New Amsterdam 55 

fore, induced the governor to convene a joint session of 
the council, the burgomasters and schepens at the city 
hall. After due deliberation the assemblage resolved 
that the citizens should mount guard nightly; that 
Fort Amsterdam should be repaired; and that, since 
the stronghold in question was not large enough to 
shelter all the inhabitants, the town should be enclosed 
between the East River and the Hudson by a ditch, a 
palisade and a rampart. 

Organized early in Stuyvesant's administration, the 
burgher guard consisted of two companies, one under 
the blue flag, the other under the orange. Its officers 
were appointed by the director general and the council 
from a double number chosen by the rank and file. As 
to the matter of repairing the fort, the Company had 
already instructed Stuyvesant to bolster it up with 
"good clay, earth and firm sods." That corporation of 
course did not know that the herbage growing on the 
earthen mounds of the fort was very attractive to 
cattle, horses, pigs and goats that browsed along the 
ridges and gazed as they munched at the martial 
spectacle beneath them. The damage to the stability 
of the structure, indeed, caused by the depredations of 
rooters and ruminants led the director general repeat- 
edly to warn the inhabitants of New Amsterdam 
against allowing their animals to run at large. "We 
see with great grief," observed Stuyvesant, "the injury 

done to the walls of the fort by pigs, especially in 

the spring when the grass comes out To our 

trouble and shame we see the pigs daily on the walls 
busy with their destruction. Therefore we request 

burgomasters and schepens to fence in the fort 

and prevent the pigs." 

In order to meet the expense entailed by the project 
of fortifying New Amsterdam, the municipal govern- 
ment resolved to raise 6000 guilders by a loan from the 
leading citizens, who were to be repaid by a tax upon 
the community. A contract was thereupon made with 
one Thomas Baxter to undertake the building of the 
proposed palisades and their adjuncts. The idea was 
to construct a wall across the island at the northern 

limit 



56 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

limit of the city, as a defence against hostile forces that 
might land above. This should consist of a line of 
round palisades, twelve feet in height and several 
inches in diameter, strengthened at intervals of a rod by 
stout posts to which split rails were fastened. Back of 
the wall a ditch was to be dug, and the dirt from it 
thrown up against the palisades. This sloping earth- 
work four feet high would serve as a platform on which 
the defenders might stand and overlook the stockade. 
The wall in fact ran along the East River to the so- 
called "Water-gate" near the junction of the present 
Pearl and Wall Streets; it followed the line of Wall 
Street — its future namesake — to the "Land-gate" at 
the corner of Broadway; and thence it proceeded west- 
ward to a steep bluff overlooking the Hudson near 
Greenwich Street. The strength of the wall, however, 
was never destined to be put to the test of war. 

THE Struggle for Town Rights 

The establishment of the town of New Amsterdam 
certainly attested the public spirit and the zealous 
perseverance of its inhabitants, even if they had secured 
only a semblance of local self-government, a municipal 
framework similar in aspect to that of a Dutch town, 
but devoid of its popular characteristics. So long as the 
director general and council, acting in the name of the 
Dutch West India Company, remained supreme in 
the management of town affairs, the mere creation of a 
body of burgomasters and schepens meant little more 
than an increase in the number of officials, and a 
possible enlargement of the public burdens for their 
maintenance. The people of the youthful town, on the 
other hand, wished to enjoy a proper share in govern- 
ment. To do so they had to assert municipal individu- 
alism against the will of an autocratic governor and 
his council, and they had to extort from a grudging 
commercial corporation an acknowledgment of certain 
civic rights which would leave to the director general 
and his employers in Holland only a proper degree of 
supervision and regulation. 

As 



The Story of New A msterd a m 57 

As an illustration of the difficulties that \a.y in the 
way of public-spirited deeds and utterances, two com- 
munications, one from the Company, the other from 
Stuyvesant and the council, to the city magistrates 
might be quoted. Said the Company: "It is the height 
of presumption in the people to protest against the 
government; so rulers debauch their authority when 
they pay wordy attention to it, and do not punish them 

as they deserve Conduct yourselves quietly and 

peacefully, submit yourselves to the government placed 
over you, and in no wise allow yourselves to hold partic- 
ular convention in deliberation on affairs of state 

which do not appertain to you." On their part the 
director general and the council reminded the town 
magistrates of their very subordinate position in the 
management of New Amsterdam affairs. Said they: 
"The establishing of an inferior court of justice under 

the name of schout, burgomasters, and schepens 

does in no wise infringe on or diminish the power and 
authority of the director general and council to enact 

any ordinances which tend to the best interest of 

the inhabitants. What is solely the qualifications of the 
schout, burgomasters and schepens, and for what pur- 
pose they are appointed, appear sufficiently from the 
instruction given to them, by which they have to abide 
and conform themselves." 

Despite the wrathful demeanor of Stuyvesant, the 
irate thumps of his wooden leg and the distant scoldings 
of the Company, the town of New Amsterdam con- 
tended bravely for rights of government along two lines 
that best displayed its individuality, namely, the 
election of officers and the control of the purse. When 
these had been attained and rendered conformable to 
the practice of the cities of the fatherland, the municipal 
structure of New Amsterdam would be fairly complete. 
For the time being, however, the people of New Amster- 
dam could not choose their own officers; the town itself 
had no revenues; the magistrates, appointed by the 
director general and the council, had no authority to 
impose any kind of a tax without the consent of the 
provincial government; and town ordinances, as well as 

other 



58 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

Other manifestations of municipal activity, were liable 
to modification and overruling. 

Shortly after the formal organization of the town had 
been eflFected, the governor requested an increase in its 
contribution for the repair of the fort. The burgo- 
masters and schepens ventured to return a negative 
answer with the observation that they were "altogether 
in the background." Stuyvesant then resolved to test 
the sentiment of the community on the question. He 
found it solidly arrayed on the side of the town magis- 
trates. The expenses for the maintenance of military 
works should be defrayed out of the regular provincial 
revenue, said the burghers. At all events they would 
grant nothing until the director general gave the town a 
revenue of its own by making over to it the excise on 
liquors. This proposition Stuyvesant flatly declined to 
entertain, surmising perhaps that such an encroach- 
ment on the provincial treasury would be an entering 
wedge for other kinds of municipal claims. Later, 
taking into consideration the possibility that the war 
between England and Holland might reach their res- 
pective colonies at any moment, the governor saw fit 
to modify his attitude. Before a public assembly he 
offered to surrender part of the excise if the town would 
support the clergymen, the schoolmaster and the 
secretary. Believing the moment opportune, certain 
enterprising spirits now petitioned the director general 
to appoint a separate schout for New Amsterdam. 
Their belief was not well founded. Stuyvesant would 
consider but one radical scheme at a time. He agreed 
to relinquish to the town that portion of the excise 
which was levied upon liquors actually consumed in 
New Amsterdam, though solely on condition that the 
local government should contribute substantially to the 
repair of the fort, take care of the civil and ecclesiastical 
officers, and let out the collection of the excise to the 
highest bidder. 

The success attained in this skirmish with the direc- 
tor general emboldened the citizens of Manhattan and 
vicinity to call a popular convention. It met at the 
town hall, in November, 1653, ostensibly to discuss 

measures 



The Story of New Amsterdam 59 

measures for protecting the inhabitants against pirates 
and Indians. After some conference the members 
invited Stuyvesant to a banquet at which they informed 
the astounded director general that they would meet 
again next month, and that he might "then do as he 
pleased, and prevent it if he could." Encouraged by 
this expression of public opinion, the magistrates of 
New Amsterdam on their own part administered a 
further shock to the governor. They notified him of 
their intention to send a memorial to the Company, and 
requested him to summon a convention still more repre- 
sentative of Manhattan and its neighborhood. Since 
this gathering would rest on an official basis, it could 
promote more effectually the preparation of the address 
in question. Realizing that for the moment he was 
helpless, Stuyvesant grudgingly consented; but his 
suspicion of popular movements led him to remark that 
these proceedings "smelt of rebellion and of contempt 
of his high authority and commission." 

The "Landdag" or convention thus brought together 
met in December, and laid before Stuyvesant the heads 
of its memorial, which dilated upon the alleged malad- 
ministration of the province and called for the redress of 
certain specified grievances. This effrontery was too 
much for the doughty old governor. He characterized 
the convention as a few "unqualified delegates who 
assume without authority the name and title of com- 
monalty." Under that designation they had no right to 
address the director general or anyone else. Taking up 
one of the matters of grievance, Stuyvesant asserted 
that, if the "nomination and election of magistrates 
should be left to the populace who were the most 
interested, then each would vote for one of his own 
stamp; the thief for a thief, the rogue, the tippler and 
the smuggler for his brother in iniquity, so that he may 
enjoy more latitude in vice and fraud." But as the 
convention, heedless of the censure, affirmed its purpose 
to appeal from his opinion, Stuyvesant unceremoniously 
bade the delegates disperse "on pain of our highest 
displeasure." "We derive our authority from God and 

the 



60 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

the Company, not from a few ignorant subjects," was 
the parting blast from the director general. 

On December 24, 1653, the burgomasters and 
schepens dispatched their memorial to the Company, 
praying for a more liberal allowance of municipal 
privileges. They requested that the office of town 
schout be made separate from that of the province, and 
that they be granted the power to collect for municipal 
purposes all of the excise levied upon liquors in New 
Amsterdam. Since even that would be insufficient to 
pay salaries and meet the various needs of the town, the 
authority to impose other taxes was desired. The 
magistrates petitioned, also, for the right to let out on 
contract the ferry between New Amsterdam and 
Brooklyn, to convey land, to have a seal distinct from 
that of the province of New Netherland, and lastly 
to have a special "stadthuys" or town hall, unless the 
Company felt disposed to donate the existing structure. 

Having started their manifesto on its way to the 
Company, the burgomasters and schepens asked Stuy- 
vesant for permission to imitate the electoral custom of 
the fatherland so far as to lay before him a double list 
of names from which he might be pleased to select the 
magistrates for the ensuing year. Incidentally they 
requested that the town fathers be given an emolument 
for their services more substantial than that of pre- 
tentious titles and distinguished consideration. As 
to the first item, the director general merely reappointed 
the outgoing officials, with one or two changes; as to 
the second, he fixed the salary of the burgomasters at 
350 guilders, and that of the schepens at 250 guilders a 
year, to be paid out of the municipal treasury. In this 
concession there was a touch of irony. Owing to the 
scant state of the treasury during the early stages of the 
town's growth, the payment of salaries was decidedly 
irregular, otherwise the town fathers would not have 
applied, as they did on a certain occasion, "for the 
arrears of their salary so long forgotten, in order that 
once seeing the fruits of their labors, they might be 
encouraged to still greater zeal." For a while at least 

they 



The Story of New A msterda m 61 

they had to eke out their municipal stipends in dignity, 
titles and grumbling. 

When an irascible notary ruffled by an adverse 
decision inveighed against the magistrates as "simple- 
tons and blockheads," he was compelled to beg pardon, 
"with uncovered head, of God, Justice, and the 
Worshipful Court," as well as to pay a round sum in 
fines. Undaunted by this punishment, the same 
individual called the secretary a "rascal," who, much 
aggrieved by this epithet, "which affected his honor 
being tender," demanded "honorable and profitable 
reparation." Again was the notary fined for his in- 
temperate language as a warning to slanderers "who 
for trifles have constantly in their mouths curses and 
abuses of other honorable people." Upon what seemed 
righteous provocation strong language might be used 
even by the town fathers themselves. A poor widow 
happened to have her house sold under judicial pro- 
ceedings. In desperation at the loss of her home she 
indignantly characterized the sheriff's deputies thus: 
"Ye despoilers, ye blood-suckers! Ye have not sold 
but given away my house." On the complaint of the 
officers that the exasperated woman's words were a 
"sting that could not be endured," the burgomasters 
and schepens solemnly condemned her utterances as 
"foul, villainous, injurious, infamous, blasphemous, 
insulting, and affronting," and as such meriting a 
severe reprimand, which was duly inflicted. 

While on the subject of judicial proceedings it might 
be said that a particularly litigious notary and legal 
practitioner of New Amsterdam, named Solomon La 
Chair, had a mania for personally conducted lawsuits 
which placed him quite frequently in the posture of 
defendant. At one time suit was brought against him 
for the balance due on a house and for a can of sugared 
wine. On the stand he testified that he had intended 
to pay, but that somehow the money had "dropped 
through his fingers." This plea the municipal court 
admitted to be ingenuous, though not especially con- 
vincing, and ordered him to pay up at once. He appears 
not to have relished the decision, and while in this mood 

made 



62 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

made the fire inspectors partial recipients of his con- 
tempt for the entire official fraternity by dubbing them 
"chimney sweeps." Fined for this remark he wreaked 
wordy vengeance on the bailiff who came to collect the 
fine by calling him a "little cock, booted and spurred." 

Perhaps the choleric temperament of New Amster- 
dam notaries was due quite as much to their slender 
fees as to their litigious inclinations. The legal Solomon 
above mentioned, if not equalling his earlier namesake 
in the ability to decide partition cases, did not, on the 
other hand, enjoy so large a remuneration. For pro- 
fessional services on one occasion he received as much 
as ten dollars in "gray peas," and at another time was 
rewarded with an" English book of no use." Though 
history naively tells of how much this seventeenth 
century Solomon received, even to the extent of "gray 
peas," it fails to furnish enlightenment on a more 
interesting question, namely, how much he charged! 
What might be called the "vegetable item" indeed, 
appears in more than one judicial action in New 
Amsterdam. A certain Mesaack Martens, for example, 
having stolen some cabbages from the garden of Pieter 
Jansen was condemned to stand in the pillory with his 
head encircled by cabbages — a punishment doubtless 
intended to fit the offence, and not to indicate a possible 
resemblance between the head and its decorations! 

After this digression upon matters judicial it would be 
well to note the opinion of the Company on the pleas of 
New Amsterdam for redress of grievances. Regarding 
them it wrote to Stuyvesant: "We are unable to dis- 
cover one single point to justify complaint 

You ought to have acted with more vigor against the 
ringleaders of the gang, and not have condescended 
to answer protests with protests, and then have passed 

all by without further notice It is therefore our 

express command that you punish what has occurred as 
it deserves, so that others may be deterred in future 
from following such examples." The Company, never- 
theless, proceeded to grant several of the requests. It 
authorized the separation of the office of municipal 
schout from that of the provincial schout, but denied 

to 



The Story of New A msterd am 63 

to the town magistrates the privilege of participating 
in the choice of the new officer. It granted, also, the 
whole of the excise to the town on condition that it ful- 
filled its previous obligations; permitted the munici- 
pality to impose other taxes with the consent of the 
provincial government and of the commonalty; vested 
the town with powers over real estate, and formally 
authorized the use of the "stadthuys" for local purposes. 

So liberal a recognition of municipal claims the 
magistrates of New Amsterdam hastened to acknowl- 
edge, and at the same time repudiated earnestly any 
thought of disloyalty. Said the burgomasters and 
schepens: "We have never thought of anything but of 
discharging our duties to the utmost," and of displaying 
"to the best of our ability the situation and necessity 
of this country." Stuyvesant, however, placed little 
confidence in this protestation of civic virtue. He did 
in fact appoint a special town schout; but when the 
appointee declined to serve, he allowed the provincial 
officer, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, to hold over in spite of 
remonstrances against this violation of the Company's 
orders. 

Before long the director general complained that the 
burgomasters and schepens had been "prodigal of fine 
promises without any succeeding action." In response 
to his demand for an account of the receipts and dis- 
bursements from the excise, the magistrates estimated 
the town's expenditure at 16,000 guilders "for outside 
and inside works," and agreed to contribute 3000 
guilders toward objects mentioned by the governor, 
provided that the town be empowered to levy a tax on 
real estate. Stuyvesant roundly berated the local 
officers for laxness of duty, declaring that the pro- 
vincial government would resume its control of the 
excise and let it out for the benefit of the Company. 
He also announced that the provincial authorities would 
themselves insure the fulfilment of the obligations 
originally undertaken by the town when it was given 
the excise, and to that end would impose taxes on real 
estate, neat cattle, and exports in New Amsterdam as 
well as in the province at large. 

Thoroughly 



64 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

Thoroughly aroused over the prospective loss of the 
excise, the first and only independent revenue that the 
town had ever enjoyed, the burgomasters and schepens 
forthwith offered to support at municipal expense one 
of the ministers, a schoolmaster and precentor, a 
"dog-whipper," or beadle and sexton, the schout, the 
secretary, the court messenger, and finally themselves 
into the bargain, if only they were allowed to retain 
control of the excise and levy the proposed assessment 
on real estate. For the maintenance of the soldiers at 
the fort, they affirmed that they could not provide, since 
they had already "continually engaged in the general 
works, submitting to watchings, and other heavy 
burdens," and had often demonstrated their bravery 
and willingness in times of calamity. Stuyvesant 
expressed some incredulity as to the truth of this asser- 
tion, and remarked that the quota of 3000 guilders was 
not large enough. He then proceeded to carry his 
declarations into effect. 

Once more the town magistrates carried their plaints 
to the Company, only to find it less liberally disposed 
than before. As on the previous occasion, the Company 
chided Stuyvesant for not having used his authority as 
he should have done, and bade him enforce the col- 
lection of taxes even against the will of the community, 
so that "these men shall no longer indulge themselves 
in the visionary dream that contributions cannot be 
levied without their assent." To the town officials 
themselves it addressed the following reproof: "Honor- 
able, Worshipful, Upright, Beloved, Faithful: As good 
governments are bound to take care that their lands, 
cities, and peoples be freed and protected as much as 

possible from violence and injury on the part of 

enemies and neighbors, so it is the duty of a good com- 
monalty to assist in defraying the common burthens 

which were contracted for maintaining themselves 

therein Your Worships have failed to pro- 
cure any subsidies for this purpose. Inasmuch as that 
is contrary to the maxims of all well regulated .... cities 

it becomes necessary that no further 

postponement be made We enjoin this especially 

upon 



The Story of New A msterd a m 65 

upon your Worships, with serious and earnest recom- 
mendation, not only to set a good example to the com- 
monalty in contributing the aforesaid supplies, but also 

to encourage them therein for such we find to be 

for the best advantage of the state." Here the matter 
rested while the director general made preparations for 
a trip to the West Indies in the commercial interests of 
the province. 

Just before Stuyvesant sailed, in December, 1654, the 
burgomasters and schepens resolved to tender him the 
official courtesy of a "gay repast" at the city hall. On 
this festive occasion the governor, on behalf of the 
Dutch West India Company presented to Martin 
Krigier, the presiding burgomaster, the formal seal of 
New Amsterdam so long desired. Heraldically de- 
scribed it had an "argent per pale, with three crosses 
saltier; for a crest a beaver proper surmounted by a 
mantle on which was a shield argent bearing the letters 
G. W. C. (Geoctroiuyeerde West-Indische Compagnie — 
Chartered West India Company)." Under the base of 
the arms were the words: "Sigillum Amstellodamensis 
in Novo Belgio," — the Seal of Amsterdam in New 
Belgium — the whole being surrounded by a wreath 
of laurel. 

After Stuyvesant's return from his voyage, and while 
he was engaged in the task of subjugating the Swedes 
on the Delaware, in 1655 the Indian trouble so long 
quiescent broke out again. It seems that Van Dyck, the 
ex-schout, shot a squaw whom he caught stealing 
peaches in his orchard near the corner of the present 
Rector Street and Broadway. A party of 1900 savages 
forthwith took advantage of the director general's 
absence with the soldiers to beach their canoes at 
Manhattan very early one morning in September, and 
broke into several houses on the pretense of searching 
for Indian enemies. The members of the provincial 
council, the town magistrates, and other men of 
prominence hurried to the fort, and parleyed with the 
sachems, trying to induce them to leave. This they 
pretended to do, but wreaked their vengeance on Van 
Dyck and another burgher before the citizen guard and 

the 



66 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

the handful of soldiers at the fort could drive them from 
the island. The savages then proceeded to slaughter 
and pillage pretty much at their pleasure in the neigh- 
borhood of Manhattan, and prowled around the north- 
ern part of the island itself, committing outrages on all 
who fell in their way. A messenger, thereupon, was 
hurriedly dispatched to recall Stuyvesant. Compre- 
hending the situation in a moment, he sent off detach- 
ments of soldiers to the neighboring settlements; 
detained for military service able-bodied persons who 
were about to sail for Europe, cutting short their objec- 
tions with a curt "possess your souls in patience"; and 
forbade anyone to leave the town limits without 
special permission. Fortunately, however. New Am- 
sterdam escaped the horrors of another Indian war. 
Thanks to the conciliatory methods of the governor, the 
savages were pacified and their captives ransomed by 
persuasion and presents, rather than by a resort to the 
strenuous policy of his predecessor, Kieft. 

Stuyvesant now seized the auspicious moment to 
impress the citizens of New Amsterdam with the neces- 
sity of improving the fortifications by having boards 
nailed along the top of the palisades, so as to prevent 
the savages from "overloopen" or scaling them. The 
burghers agreed that the funds for the purpose should 
be raised by special assessment. But since any form of 
direct taxation was unpopular, the assessment was to 
be called a voluntary contribution, because not based on 
a formal valuation of property. The government, 
therefore, called upon each burgher to give "according 
to his state, condition and good will," which circum- 
stances the officials determined in accordance with a 
rough estimate made in advance. Less than half of the 
usual taxpayers hastened to avail themselves of such an 
opportunity to combine patriotism with generosity, as 
these qualities were rated by burgomasters and schep- 
ens. Some ventured to disagree with the official ideas 
about "state, condition and good will," whereupon 
their contributions as offered were promptly increased. 
Others were taxed formally since they "always resorted 
to one excuse or another." And forcible measures were 

employed 



The Story of new a msterd a m 67 

employed in the case of "disaffected and malevolent" 
persons, to whom, it would seem, patriotism was not 
synonymous with purse. 

The comparative success of the expedient caused 
Stuyvesant to suggest to the council the advisability of 
a general increase in taxation, so as to reimburse the 
provincial government for its expenditure on ransoms to 
the Indians. In his judgment the luxury and high 
wages then prevailing did not argue an inability to 
contribute for the public service, but rather a "malev- 
olent unwillingness arising from an imaginary liberty 
in a new and, as some pretend, a free, country." The 
council, more amenable to popular opinion, agreed only 
to an increase in the excise. 

Early in 1656 the burgomasters and schepens made 
another trial at what they had often attempted before. 
They asked Stuyvesant why other communities in the 
province enjoyed the privilege of electing their officers, 
and not New Amsterdam, its capital.'' The director 
general replied that this very circumstance explained 
the denial of the privilege. Such a right, he said, had 
been granted only because the places in question lay at 
«ome distance from the seat of government. He 
promised, however, that he would vest New Amsterdam 
with the privilege desired, on condition that the election 
of magistrates should always be subject to the ratifica- 
tion of the provincial government, that only persons 
well qualified and agreeable to the director general and 
the council should be chosen, and that some members of 
the council should be present when the magistrates 
actually in office nominated their successors. Yet after 
the conditions had been accepted, Stuyvesant objected 
to the choice of the incumbents on the ground of per- 
sonal distrust, and hence continued the practice of 
appointing the burgomasters and schepens directly. 

Not disheartened by their defeat, the town fathers 
made further efforts in behalf of municipal rights. 
Stuyvesant's favorite. Van Tienhoven, having been 
superseded as schout by Nicasius de Sille, they re- 
quested the governor to appoint a local schout from 
among the "intelligent and expert" citizens — that is, 

of 



68 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

of course, if the town itself were not permitted to 
choose the officer. Stuyvesant resolutely declined thus 
to weaken the control of the provincial government. 
On the other hand, he met the wishes of the magistrates 
by authorizing the schout to enforce the judgments of 
the municipal court in its own name, by extending the 
criminal jurisdiction of that body and by allowing town 
officers to collect fees for recording public documents. 
He even created the office of town treasurer to be held 
by an ex-burgomaster. Since the accounts of this 
officer were subject to audit by the provincial authori- 
ties, Stuyvesant occasionally warned the town govern- 
ment that, unless it kept its accounts straighter, he 
would be forced to resume management of the munici- 
pal revenue-books. 

In the firm belief that the concessions that he had 
just made ought to be followed by a suitable financial 
response, the director general called upon the town 
government to pay the arrears of its contributions 
toward the repair of the fortifications. Evasive 
promises, complaints about hard times, and a refreshing 
petition for aid from the Company's own revenues were 
not what he had expected. He continued, therefore, to 
exert pressure in the hope of seeing some definite action 
taken, though to little result. 

Municipal individuality having appeared so often in 
political form, it was now to assume a social guise. The 
burghers of old Amsterdam, it seems, had recently 
divided themselves into two classes — "great and small," 
financial, not physical, considerations fixing the dis- 
tinction. All citizens who paid to the city 500 guilders 
enjoyed the title of "Great Burghers," a monopoly of 
the public offices, and other especial privileges. "Small 
Burghers" were those who paid 50 guilders for the 
honor, thereby insuring their right to do business. 
Desirous of patterning the social structure of New 
Amsterdam after this model, of safeguarding the town's 
trade against foreign competition, and, incidentally, of 
replenishing the municipal treasury, in 1657 the burgo- 
masters and schepens decided to establish there the 
system of the "burgher-right." 

Much 



The Story of New a msterd a m 69 

Much democratic criticism has been vented upon this 
creation of a municipal aristocracy based on wealth 
alone. In fact it had no extraordinary consequences 
either political or social. It was a police measure and 
sprang from an economic motive. The people of New 
Amsterdam disliked, and very naturally, the itinerant 
traders who brought to the town nothing of much 
account while they often carried its money away. 
Already had it been provided by law that peddlers of 
the sort should keep "fire and light"^ — that is, have a 
reasonably permanent place of business — in the town. 
Now, since the number of these undesirable persons 
showed a tendency to increase, the burgomasters and 
schepens petitioned Stuyvesant that, in consideration 
of the burdens the citizens had to bear, and of the 
loyalty they had always exhibited, they should be 
allowed to enjoy the close citizenship of the '.'burgher- 
right." Regarding the privilege as one of the most 
important in a well-governed town, they asked the 
director general to restrict the right of carrying on 
business in New Amsterdam to such as held the dis- 
tinction. 

In response to this appeal the provincial government 
decreed that, before attempting to sell their goods, 
traders must "set up and keep an open store within the 
gates and walls" of New Amsterdam, and secure from 
the burgomasters and schepens as well, the common or 
small "burgher-right," for which they would have to 
pay the town 20 guilders. The body of small burghers, 
also, should include all freemen who had resided in the 
town a year and six weeks, all who had married or 
might marry the daughters of burghers, all who did 
business regularly in the town, and all the salaried 
officers of the Dutch West India Company. "In con- 
formity to the laudable custom of the city of Amster- 
dam in Europe," there should be established a great 
"burgher-right," for the enjoyment of which one must 
pay New Amsterdam 50 guilders. In addition to the 
business privilege as such, the burghers of this class 
alone should be eligible to municipal office, be exempt 
for a year and six weeks from watches and military 

expeditions, 



70 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

expeditions, and be free from arrest by order of any- 
inferior court. 

Twenty "great burghers" were forthwith enrolled. 
Among them were the director general, the councillors, 
the military officers, the municipal authorities, and one 
woman, Mrs. Cornelius Van Tienhoven, whose husband 
had recently left for parts unknown. The "small 
burghers" numbered 216, out of a population of about 
1000. The inability of the existing body of "great 
burghers" to fill the municipal offices without absolutely 
monopolizing them soon became so apparent that, in 
the year following the establishment of the institution, 
the director general found it necessary to dilute this 
exclusive and somewhat unpopular class by adding 
eight names to its roll. The "small burghers," on the 
contrary, induced the governor, in 1661, to tighten their 
monopoly by expelling any member who absented him- 
self from New Amsterdam for four months without 
holding "fire and light" there. 

With the eligibility to municipal office so narrowly 
restricted, Stuyvesant had little to fear from encroach- 
ments upon the provincial administration, or from 
undue manifestations of democratic sentiment. He 
knew, also, that the proceeds from the fees for the 
enjoyment of the "burgher-right" were to be used 
largely for military purposes. Accordingly, it is not 
strange that, when in 1658 the burgomasters and 
schepens applied once more for leave to nominate a 
double number of persons out of whom the director 
general should choose the incumbents for the places to 
be vacated, Stuyvesant should have consented. There- 
after the town was to possess some right in determining 
the selection of burgomasters and schepens, limited and 
far from popular though the privilege might be. 

The governor went even further. He agreed 
finally to the separation of the office of town schout 
from that of provincial schout; but he retained the 
prerogative of appointment in both cases. Thereupon 
the magistrates of New Amsterdam declined to recog- 
nize the new schout. Resolved Waldron by name, and 
turned for aid and comfort to Brooklyn. Here they 

found 



The Story of New a msterd a m 71 

found one Pieter Tonneman, an ex-schout and a wily 
man withal, by whose assistance they managed to 
circumvent the director general. This Brooklynite 
they sent to Holland with a petition to the Company 
for his appointment as town schout. In April, 1660, he 
returned triumphantly bearing his commission, and 
Stuyvesant had ruefully to acknowledge that he had 
been vanquished. So far as the customs of the seven- 
teenth century would allow, the struggle for municipal 
rights had been fought and won. 

MUNICIPAL Growth 

In tracing the fortunes of the community on Man- 
hattan from its establishment as a trading station to 
the attainment of its rights as a municipality, two main 
lines of growth have been visible. Of these, one con- 
cerned the efforts to distinguish the town of New 
Amsterdam as clearly as might be from the province of 
New Netherland, and the other had to do with the 
promotion of moral, intellectual and material progress. 
Local self-improvement and local self-government, 
indeed, continued throughout to dominate the history 
of the town so long as the Dutch rule lasted. 

Before taking up for consideration the further circum- 
stances under which New Amsterdam secured its dis- 
tinctive growth, it might be well to glance for a moment 
at its blood, bone and sinew — the finances, anticipating 
to some extent facts that will appear later. As a whole 
the financial system of New Amsterdam resembled that 
of the average Dutch town, modified of course by its 
size and local situation, and by its dependence upon the 
Company. Strictly speaking there was no direct 
taxation. Even when sums were specially levied for the 
support of the fire and police departments, they rested 
on the foundation of immediate payment for service, 
and fell upon individual houses, chimneys, fire-places 
and the like. Certain revenues came from fees, duties 
and other indirect forms of taxation. Among them 
were an excise on the brewing and sale of liquors, an 
excise on the slaughtering of cattle, dues from grocers, 

fees 



72 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

fees for stamping weights and measures, fees for survey- 
ing land, the proceeds from the disposal of lands owned 
by the town, the tax on houses and their "appurten- 
ances," and the fees from the "burgher-right." All of 
the revenues had been obtained from the provincial 
government at one time or another, and resembled 
those common to European towns of a fairly advanced 
type. The levying of special assessments for local 
improvements, however, was a product of the new world 
and its conditions. This took the form of compelling 
a person to make certain improvements on or near his 
property for the public good and at his own expense; 
otherwise the town would do it for him and then charge 
him proportionately for the outlay. The expenditure 
of the municipality consisted mainly in the payment of 
salaries to officials, and in defraying the cost of con- 
structing wooden ramparts and of repairing the walls, 
the town hall and other public structures. Yet in spite 
of the various sources of revenue which the town had 
managed to worry out of the provincial government, 
and regardless of the fact that the Company itself had 
been compelled to pay a considerable part of the cost 
of the fortifications, which it had hoped to impose upon 
the town, the municipal treasury of New Amsterdam, 
like that of its successor. New York, often reached the 
limit of indebtedness. 

Turning now to a more general survey of municipal 
development on Manhattan, the most important aspect 
of it was the moral and religious one. Director General 
Stuyvesant and his provincial advisers, it would seem, 
accepted absolutely the principle pervading an utter- 
ance of the Reverend Cotton Mather: "If worship be 
lawful, the compelling to come to it compelleth not to 
sin, but the sin is in the will that needs to be forced to 
Christian duty." This principle the provincial govern- 
ment was disposed to apply rather more strictly than 
was the case with the town fathers of New Amsterdam. 
Stuyvesant's own interest in the religious welfare of the 
community became all the more personal when he 
agreed to pay part of the salary of Domine Selyns, the 
minister at Brooklyn, on condition that the domine 

would 



The Story of New Amsterd am 73 

would preach on Sunday afternoons in the little chapel 
which the director general built on his "bouwerie," and 
which stood on the site of the present St. Mark's 
Church. Here were assembled in due season all of the 
members of the Stuyvesant family, the fifty negro 
slaves and the various white servants in his employ, and 
a number of religiously inclined people from the town 
as well. 

Up to this time, in contradistinction to the practice 
elsewhere, a fair degree of religious toleration had pre- 
vailed in New Amsterdam. Whether or not the attitude 
was due to the small and unobtrusive body of dissenters 
from the official faith — the Calvinistic Dutch Reformed 
— the fact remains that not until 1654 did anything 
serious occur to change so wise a policy. In that year 
the Lutherans ventured to ask permission to worship 
by themselves. The director general declined to grant 
it on the ground that other sects, like Anabaptists, 
English Independents and their kind, would request 
the same privilege. Instead, he heeded the Company's 
advice to "use all moderate exertions" to attract 
Lutherans to Calvinism. What constituted "moderate 
exertions" from the official standpoint is illustrated by a 
proclamation of the governor and council in 1656. It 

recited that, "whereas conventicles and meetings 

are held in which some unqualified persons have 

assumed unto themselves the office of teaching, an- 
nouncing and declaring God's Holy Word without being 

called thereunto by authority either of Church 

or State and because from such manner of gather- 
ings divers mischiefs, heresies and schisms are to be 
expected, the governor and the council absolutely 
prohibit all unlawful conventicles of that character." 
In no respect, however, was this to affect purely private 
worship at home. 

When the Lutherans complained against what they 
regarded as sheer intolerance, the Company wrote to 
Stuyvesant: "We would fain not have seen your 
worship's hand set to the placard against the Lutherans, 

nor have heard that you oppressed them It has 

always been our intention to let them enjoy all calmness 

and 



74 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

and tranquillity. Wherefore, you will not hereafter 
publish any similar placards without our previous con- 
sent, but allow all the free exercise of their religion in 
their own houses." The Company, of course, did not 
perceive that instructions of this sort might be in- 
terpreted so as to authorize assemblies for public 
worship if held in private houses — a view that the 
orthodox director general would not willingly entertain. 
Accordingly, in 1657, when the Reverend ErnestGoet- 
water arrived to take charge of the Lutheran commun- 
ity, Stuyvesant, hearkening to the objections of the 
two Calvinist clergymen, Megapolensis and Drisius, 
who were something of heresy-hunters, forbade him to 
hold any meeting or to perform any religious function 
whatever. In this action the Company upheld the 
governor, but observed that it "might have been done in 
a more gentle way." Realizing, furthermore, that the 
strenuous qualities of the director general displayed 
themselves in religious as well as in secular concerns, 
it enjoined him to moderate measures in order that 
"those of other persuasions may not be frightened away 
through such a preciseness in the public Reformed 

Church but by attending its services may be 

attracted and gained." It added significantly that, if 
it sent any more clergymen, they would be persons "not 
tainted with any needless preciseness, which is rather 

prone to create schisms than adapted to edify the 

flock." 

Denials of religious toleration did not stop with the 
Lutherans. In August, 1657, a number of Quakers, 
including several who had recently been expelled from 
Boston, arrived at New Amsterdam. Two of the 
women of the party soon began to preach in the streets, 

"pretending to be divinely inspired and made a 

terrible hue and cry, crying woe! woe! to the crown of 
pride and the drunkards of Ephraim! Two woes past 
and the third coming, except ye repent." They also 
appear to have entered the church, making a great 
disturbance. Utterances of this kind Stuyvesant doubt- 
less believed inspired — though not from above; for that 
reason he promptly ordered the Quakers out of the 

province. 



The Story of New A msterda m 75 

province. One of the men, however, was condemned to 
labor two years at a wheelbarrow alongside of a negro 
convict, or pay a fine of 600 guilders. After having been 
chained to the wheelbarrow and ordered to work he 
refused, whereupon he was beaten by the negro with a 
tarred rope till he fell unconscious. Even worse tor- 
tures were applied in the town hall prison without 
extorting from him any repentance until Mrs. Bayard, 
the director general's sister, interceded in his behalf. 
Stuyvesant then expelled him from the province also. 

Following these measures came a proclamation 
announcing that the entertainment of a Quaker would 
be visited with a heavy fine, half of which was to go to 
the informer, and that vessels bringing Quakers to New 
Amsterdam would be liable to confiscation. Since the 
wrath of the Almighty had become manifest in "per- 
mitting the spirit of error to scatter its injurious 

poison in spiritual matters raising up and 

propagating a new, unheard of, abominable heresy 
called Quakers seeking to seduce many," the director 
general and the council appointed a day of fasting, 
prayer and thanksgiving, so as to ward off any other 
signs of divine displeasure. On that day, while the 
religious observances were in progress, "all exercises and 
amusements, tennis, ball-playing, hunting, fishing, 
sailing; also all unlawful plays, such as gaming, dice- 
playing, drunkenness and the like" were prohibited on 
pain of "arbitrary punishment and correction," i. e. 
whipping at the post in front of the town hall. The 
same punishment Stuyvesant ordered some years later 
to be inflicted upon persons who had participated more 
than twice in the public exercise of any religion, except 
the Reformed, in "houses, barns, ships, woods, or 
fields." 

So drastic a policy did not meet with the approval of 
the Company. "Although it is our cordial desire," 

wrote that body to Stuyvesant ,"that sectarians 

may not be found there, yet as the contrary seems to be 
the fact, we doubt very much whether rigorous pro- 
ceeding against them ought not to be discontinued; 
unless, indeed, you intend to check and destroy your 

population. 



76 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

population, which in the youth of your existence ought 
rather to be encouraged by all possible means. Where- 
fore, it is our opinion that some connivance is useful, 
and that at least the consciences of men ought to remain 
free and unshackled. Let everyone remain free as long 
as he is modest, moderate, his political conduct irre- 
proachable, and as long as he does not offend others or 
oppose the government." The admonition proved to be 
effective, and no more religious persecution darkened 
New Amsterdam or its vicinity. 

Aside from "exercises and amusements" that violated 
the laws of public worship, Stuyvesant in general did 
not eye with favor any sports and games that offended 
his sense of propriety. For this reason he forbade cer- 
tain farmers' servants to "ride the goose on the feast of 
Bacchus at Shrovetide." " It is altogether unprofitable, 
unnecessary, and censurable," he declared, "for subjects 
and neighbors to celebrate such pagan and popish 
feasts, and to practice such evil customs in this country, 
even though they may be tolerated and looked at 
through the fingers in some places in the Fatherland." 
The pastime was in fact a cruel one. It consisted of 
greasing a live goose, hanging it up, and while riding 
swiftly by, endeavoring to catch the bird by the head. 
When, however, the director general punished some 
persons for disregarding his command, the burgo- 
masters and schepens complained that his action, 
without their knowledge and consent, had exceeded his 
authority within the town limits. The remonstrance 
evoked the sarcastic rejoinder: "as if we can issue no 
order or forbid no rabble to celebrate the feast of 
Bacchus without the advice, knowledge and consent of 
burgomasters and schepens, much less have power to 
correct such persons that transgress the Christian and 
holy commandment, without the cognizance and con- 
sent of a little court of justice." Stuyvesant, of course, 
did not care whether the protest of the burgomasters 
and schepens arose from liberal views about holiday 
diversions or from a jealous regard for the protection of 
the town against the encroachments of the provincial 
government; he was simply determined to suppress all 

forms 



The Story of New a msterd a m 77 

forms of frivolity that differed from his canons of cor- 
rect deportment. Indeed he went still further in his 
proclamation of December, 1655. "Whereas," it ran, 
"experience has manifested and shown that on New 
Years and May days much drunkenness and other 
irregularities are committed, besides other sorrowful 
accidents, such as woundings, frequently arising there- 
from by firing, Mayplanting and carousing, in addition 
to the unnecessary waste of powder; to prevent which 

the Director General and Council expressly 

forbid within this province on New 

Years or May days any firing of guns, or any planting 
of May poles or any beating of drums or any treating 
with brandy, wine or beer." Thereafter the working 
off of surplus enthusiasm became increasingly difficult. 

Despite enactments to the contrary, the imbibing of 
"hot and rebellious" liquors, as well as of less noxious 
ones, at forbidden times, expecially on Sunday, was 
persisted in to such an extent that, in 1656, the director 
general and the council resolved to check the practice 
by a comprehensive ordinance that gives further insight 
into the amusements of the sporting element in New 
Amsterdam. Not only were ordinary occupations to be 
laid aside on the Lord's Day, but also "any lower or 
unlawful exercises or games, drunkenness, frequenting 
taverns or grog-shops, dancing, card-playing, back- 
gammon, tennis, ball-playing, bowling, rolling nine-pins, 
racing with boats, cars or wagons before, during or 
between divine service" were strictly forbidden. "More 
especially," ran the ordinance, "no tavern-keepers or 
tapsters shall be allow any clubs to sit durine, before or 
between the sermons," or on days other than sunday 
"after the setting of the night watch or ringing of the 
bell"; or "tap, present , give or sell directly or in- 
directly" liquors to any person, under the penalts of 
fines upon the guests and upon the tapster, both for the 
offence and for each one of such guests. The prohibi- 
tion to be thus regaled at'unseasonable times, however, 
did not apply to persons "attending by order and with 
consent of magistrates to public business." 

In prosicuting violations of the law against the sale 

of 



78 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

of liquor on Sunday it was relatively as difficult then as 
it is now to obtain evidence sufficient for conviction. 
On one occasion Resolved Waldron, the schout, haled 
Solomon La Chair, the bellicose notary, before the 
municipal court on the charge of breaking the law in 
this respect. He declared that he had gone to La 
Chair's house "before the preaching and found a man 
in the house and a glass with brandy in it; also return- 
ing in the afternoon he found a glass with beer or some- 
thing else, he knows not what, in it." When, also, he 
undertook to chide the defendant for desecrating the 
Sabbath he was promptly called a rascal. On his own 
behalf La Chair asserted that "he had been on the 
watch, and coming home in the morning he tapped a 
little drop for himself of which some remained in the 
glass, and that he thereupon went to sleep. Mean- 
while people came into the house but did not tap; and 

in the afternoon some beer remained in the glass 

Denying to have ill-treated the officer, but said 'Come, 
see here what the house contains." The "man in the 
house," Jan Los by name, admitted that the defendant 
"gave him a little sup," but the schout "cannot say that 
he had drank it." The schout then declared that Los 
was present when La Chair berated him as a rascal, to 
which Los "being asked, answers he did not hear but 
says he heard talk, but knows not what." The munici- 
pal court thereupon dismissed the complaint on the 
ground that the prosecution had been unable to produce 
"any proper proof." 

It has already been observed that Resolved Waldron, 
as the director general's appointee for the office of city 
schout, stood in no great favor with the town magis- 
trates; hence it is not altogether surprising that his 
successor, Pieter Tonneman, the "wily man from 
Brooklyn," and the town's own appointed schout, 
should have secured a conviction on about the same 
amount of evidence. Before the court of burgomasters 
and schepens he stated that he had fined the wife of 
Andrees Rees "because there were nine-pins at her 
house last Sunday during preaching and the can and 
glass stood on the table." In response Rees declared 

"that 



The Story of New a msterd a m 79 

"that he was not at home, but on the watch, and that 

there were no nine-pins at his house nor drinking 

during the preaching." His wife also contended 

"that there were no nine-pins or drinking at her house, 
saying that some came to her house who said that 
church was out, and that one had a pin and the other a 
bowl in the hand, but they did not play." In rebuttal 
the schout asserted that the defendant's wife had said 
"she did not know that Church was out," and, "trying 
to corrupt his official integrity in an artful manner," 
had offered to "compound with him!" The defendant, 
accordingly, was condemned by the court to pay a fine 
of six guilders. 

A more interesting attempt to safeguard the morality 
of New Amsterdam is found in an ordinance that pro- 
vided virtually for the abolition of long engagements! 
Since betrothed persons, it seems, had postponed their 
marriage until a long time after the banns had been 
published, which conduct was "directly in contraven- 
tion of the excellent order and practice of our 

Fatherland," all such persons in future would have to 
marry within a month after their engagement had been 
announced, unless they could give a good excuse to the 
contrary. The consternation thereby awakened among 
prospective husbands, and the utter chaos in arrange- 
ments for trousseaux thereby caused among prospective 
brides did not affect this rigid decree, so long as the 
Dutch rulers presided over the destinies of New 
Amsterdam. 

In a similar connection it will be remembered that, 
when the burgomasters and schepens applied to Stuy- 
vesant for the privilege of choosing orphan-masters, 
they had been ordered to leave the care of widows and 
orphans to the deacons. But persistent endeavor in 
this respect, rather than any lack of confidence in the 
deacons, eventually obtained for the town magistrates 
the right to appoint, not only orphan-masters, but 
churchwardens as well. About the same time, in 1658, 
solicitude for the helpless and afflicted on the part of 
the Company's surgeon led to the establishment of the 
first hospital on Manhattan. Here the patients were to 

be 



80 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

be taken care of by a faithful person who should supply 
them with food, fire and light, while the doctors fur- 
nished the medicine, and presumably the barbers, the 
surgery! In this year, also, the first coroner's inquest 
in New Amsterdam appears to have been held. 

Passing now from morals to intellect, it appears that, 
after the public school had taken up its quarters in the 
town hall,inspiteof the grumblings of the loungers, the 
portly size of these persons, and the presence of sundry 
huge sacks of salt stored in the building, seriously 
limited the amount of space available for official uses. 
Accordingly the burgomasters and schepens ordered 
both of the encumbrances to be removed, so that the 
city hall "be not wholly ruined by the salt nor occupied 
by the lodgers." So large, indeed, became the attend- 
ance at the school that, in May, 1655, William Verstius, 
the teacher, had to transfer his flock to a building on 
Pearl Street. His successor in the post was one Harma- 
nus van Hoboocken, who was superseded in turn by 
Evert Pietersen at a salary of ^14.50 a month and ^50 
allowance for board a year. 

By this time the magistrates of New Amsterdam had 
become convinced of the necessity for higher education. 
In 1658 they wrote to the Company as follows: "Laying 
before your Honors the great augmentation of the 

youth in this place which yearly increases more 

and more, and finds itself now very numerous; and 
though many of them can read and write, the burghers 
and inhabitants are nevertheless inclined to have their 
children instructed in the most useful languages, the 
chief of which is the Latin tongue; and as there are no 

means to do so here we shall therefore 

trouble your Honors and humbly request that you 
would be pleased to send us a suitable person for master 

of a Latin school hoping that it may finally 

attain to an academy whereby this place arriving at 
great splendor from your Honors shall have the reward 
and praise On your Honors sending us a school- 
master we shall endeavor to have constructed a suitable 
place for the school." To this request the Company 
readily acceded, and a gentleman named Alexander 

Carol us 



THE Story of New a msterda m 81 

Carolus Curtius, the sound of whose name might 
reasonably argue a knowledge of the Latin tongue, came 
in 1659 to administer learning in the first high school 
established on Manhattan, and that for boys only. 
The capacity of girls for absorbing Latin was not then 
appreciated. From the public school they were gradu- 
ated forthwith into the kitchen and the sewing-room, 
where they might indulge their linguistic talents in other 
directions. 

Though Alexander Carolus Curtius may have had a 
good knowledge of dead languages, he did not know 
much about live boys, whose wish to learn that all Gaul 
was divided into three parts did not equal their desire 
to ascertain into how many parts they could tear each 
other's clothes. Accordingly, since the parents of his 
pupils would not permit him to leave any impressions 
on their offspring other than mental ones, he failed to 
associate Roman discipline with a Latin education. 
This fact, coupled with his claim as a professor to 
exemption from taxes — a claim which the magistrates 
promptly overruled — led to his supersession in 1662 by 
one Aegidius Luyck, whose last name, if less Romanic 
than that of his predecessor, had certainly a more 
auspicious sound to it. In point of fact, Aegidius Luyck 
made such a reputation for his discipline and his Latin 
that pupils flocked to the school from various parts of 
the province and even from Virginia. 

Reverting once more to the matter of the observance 
of Sunday, the accounts already given of its regulation 
by law, in accordance with the Calvinistic standards 
of the seventeenth century, show that it occupied an 
important place among public improvements. The 
impulse in this direction appears to have emanated 
more from the strict piety of Governor Stuyvesant than 
from the conscientious scruples of burgomasters and 
schepens. For example, in 1663, the city authorities 
were reminded by the director general that previous 
ordinances on the subject had been disregarded by some 
persons who had misconstrued their terms to mean the 
observance of only half the Sabbath. In order, there- 
fore, to remove false impressions or interpretations on 

this 



82 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

this score, the magistrates themselves proclaimed the 
order of the governor and council that henceforth not 
only a part but the whole of the Sabbath should be kept 
sacred. Customary labor, and in particular the gather- 
ing of social clubs, were absolutely forbidden. Under 
the same prohibition were placed all "unusual exercises 
such as games, boat, cart or wagon racing, fishing, 
fowling, running, sailing, nutting or picking straw- 
berries, trafficking with Indians all dissolute. . . . 

plays, riots, and calling children out to the streets and 
highways." As penalties for the first offence the 
forfeiture of the upper garment or a fine of six guilders 
was prescribed, these penalties increasing to corporal 
punishment in case of repetition. 

Though agreeing with Stuyvesant and the council 
that an enactment of this sort was desirable, in their 
actual judgments the burgomasters and schepens 
suitably tempered its severity. On one occasion the 
schout prosecuted a man before the municipal court for 
having worked at his cart on Sunday. In his own 
defense the culprit said that he "merely took a pin out 
of his cart through fear that boys would other- 
wise ride" it to pieces. Another individual was brought 
to book for having cut wood on Sunday to keep his 
children warm, and still another pleaded guilty to hav- 
ing cut a stick as a plaything for his little boy. In all 
these cases the magistrates dismissed the offenders with 
a simple reprimand. 

In addition to the regulation of morals and the 
encouragement of education, salutary measures were 
adopted to safeguard the persons and property of the 
citizens, by calling into existence the Dutch forerunners 
of the metropolitan fire and police departments. Since 
the wooden houses with their thatched roofs and 
wooden chimneys were too near equally inflammable 
haystacks, in 1657 the town authorities ordered the 
latter to be moved to a safe distance. In the following 
year they levied a tax of one guilder on each chimney, 
from the proceeds of which tax hooks and ladders and 
leather fire-buckets were to be purchased. So as to 
avoid the delay and difficulty incident to the importa- 
tion 



The Story of New A msterd a m 83 

tion of the buckets from the Netherlands, the magis- 
trates resolved to patronize home industry, and 
accordingly made a contract with the shoemakers of 
New Amsterdam to supply the city with a suitable 
number. The buckets were placed "at the corners of 
the streets, in public houses, and in other places con- 
venient of access." Fifty of them were placed in the 
town hall at Coenties Slip, twelve in a tavern near the 
corner of Broad and Pearl Streets, and a like number in 
a private house in the "Smit's Vly." This apparatus, 
and the supervision of the two fire-wardens, constituted 
the first fire department on Manhattan. Some years 
later when it became known that certain rich people 
had a number of fire-places connected with the same 
chimney, thus causing the incidence of taxation to 
fall unequally, the town government ordered the assess- 
ment to be levied upon each fire-place instead. 

More or less as an adjunct to the fire department, the 
project of forming a "rattle watch," or police force, was 
mooted in 1654, as a substitute for the volunteer citizen's 
night watch; or in the words of the record: "by con- 
sideration of the small accommodation and convenience 
for the citizen's watch, and likewise because of the great 
cost of fire and light for the same, making it burdensome 
upon the citizens to sustain them during the winter." 
At this time, however, no one seemed inclined to assume 
the duty of springing a rattle to frighten off the mid- 
night marauder, of detecting the presence of fire, or of 
calling out the hours and of assuring the Dutchmen who 
sonorously slept them away that all was well. Not until 
1658 did the magistrates feel emboldened to issue an 
ordinance governing the organization and activity of 
the first police force established on Manhattan. It 
was composed of a captain and eight men who were to 
be on duty from nine o'clock In the evening till drum- 
beat, approximately six o'clock in the morning. The 
salary attached to the office of policeman was to be 
eighteen guilders a month, certain allowances for 
candles, and several hundred sticks of fire-wood. For 
the support of the force the captain was authorized to 
collect fifteen stivers a month from each household. 

A 



84 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

A close inspection of the rules and regulations shows 
that the management of policemen was not an easy task. 
Fines were imposed for tardiness in arriving at the 
"usual hour, to wit, before bell ring"; for not coming 
in person to serve on the watch, or if detained for good 
cause, not sending a substitute; for appearing drunk on 
duty; for indulging in any "opposition or insolence. . . . 
within the square of the Town Hall," or in going the 
rounds; for sleeping or other negligence on post; for 
failure to catch thieves; and for "lying still" when 
people called "Watch! Watch!" Subject to like 
penalties were such further evidences of misconduct as 
swearing or fighting while on duty, unwillingness "to 
go around or in any way lose a turn," and being off post 
without leave. On the other hand fines were inflicted 
on persons who challenged any member of the watch "to 
come with him to fight," or threatened a policeman "to 
beat him in the morning," when the watch was dis- 
missed. The record then adds: "Whatever any of the 
watch shall get from any of the prisoners, whether 
lock-up money, present or other fee, which those of the 
watch shall receive by consent of the burgomasters 

shall be brought into the hands of the captain for 

the benefit of the fellow watchmen and shall be there 
preserved until it be divided around." The proceeds 
from fines, also, were to be divided four times a year 
among the members of the watch, "without their 
holding any drinking meeting thereupon or keeping any 
club." 

Great as the inducements for service appear to have 
been, it was not until January, 1661, that the police 
department of New Amsterdam reached final organiza- 
tion. Its members were Captain Lodowyck Pos and 
Patrolmen Jan Cornelisen van Vlensburgh, Hendrick 
Hendrickzen van Doesburgh, Cornells Hendricksen, 
Andries Andriesen, Cornells Barensen, Pieter Jansen 
van de Lange Straat, Pieter Jansen Werckendam and 
Mattys Muller — altogether a fairly solid Dutch phalanx. 

Closely associated with this care for the protection of 
person and property was that shown by the magistrates 
in fostering the business interests of New Amsterdam. 

The 



THE Story of New a msterd am 85 

The appointment, in 1655, of a high constable or town 
marshal to enforce judicial proceedings in civil cases 
tended to make business activities more secure. To 
remedy the lack of a suitable currency, the burgomaster 
and schepens petitioned the Company to authorize the 
establishment of a mint for the coinage of silver, and the 
conversion of sewant into an article of trade, which 
would promote the purchase of furs from the Indians. 
Perceiving no especial advantage in the proposal, the 
Company declined to consider it. On the other hand, 
business was aided by the appointment, in 1656, of an 
official broker who served the Dutch and English 
merchants in their transactions, and who received a 
commission on sales. The merchants met on 'change 
Friday morning near the corner of the present Bridge 
and Broad Streets — a centre of trade that has not 
greatly shifted in more than two centuries and a half. 

Hard by this first exchange on Manhattan lay the 
market-place, on the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets, 
to which on Saturday mornings the country folk brought 
their produce and where they placed their wagons- 
much to the annoyance of one prominent citizen, 
AUard Anthony, whose wife and daughters disliked the 
proximity of the market to their own house. As a 
supplement to this emporium the town magistrates 
erected a meat-market, and licensed official butchers. 
Another measure that protected the pocket as well as 
the health of the citizens was the appointment of two 
inspectors of baking, who were to take care "that the 
bread within this city's jurisdiction be baked of good 
material and due weight, and as it comes from the mill 
unmixed or with other stuff amongst it." But as the 
price of bread fixed at the same time proved unprofit- 
able, on petition of the bakers, the burgomasters and 
schepens agreed to raise the price to twenty-six stivers 
for an eight pound loaf of wheat, and to twenty-two 
stivers for a loaf of rye. 

Commercial business, no less than mercantile, had its 
share of attention also. Cargoes had been landed 
hitherto in scows at the wharf on the line of the present 
Moore Street, and jutting out from Pearl, or they had 

been 



86 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

been discharged directly from vessels of small draught 
that came up the creek running through the middle of 
Broad Street as far as Exchange Place. The growth of 
shipping soon made an enlargement of the wharf at 
Moore Street necessary, and in 1658 led to the erection 
of a dock near the corner of Bridge and Broad Streets 
where the exchange was held. These structures, for the 
use of which the city charged so much per "last" or 
double ton, were the scant beginnings of the vast system 
of docks and wharves that now line the river front of 
New York. 

One of the activities along the East River side of New 
Amsterdam that needed regulation was the ferry from 
Peck Slip to Brooklyn. So much "daily confusion" and, 
incidentally, competition, had arisen among the ferry- 
men on Manhattan, that sometimes people had to wait 
"whole days before they could obtain a passage, and 
then not without danger, and at an exorbitant price." 
To cope with this situation, the director general and 
the council ordered that no person should conduct a 
ferry without a license, and that the ferrymen should 
always keep "proper servants, boats and lodges" on 
both sides of the river. In summer the passengers 
should be accommodated from five o'clock a. m. to 
eight o'clock p. m., and in winter, from seven o'clock 
a. m. to five o'clock p. m., provided that the windmill 
"hath not taken in its sail," this being supposedly an 
infallible barometer that indicated the approach of bad 
weather. On the other hand, no one need be taken 
across before the payment of ferriage, except the 
director general, the members of the council and other 
official persons, who should be allowed to ride free. 

The control of this ferry and the management of the 
public weigh-scales often aroused controversy between 
the provincial and the town authorities. The governor 
had always maintained that the proceeds from the 
ferry and the fees exacted for the public weighing of 
goods were perquisites belonging to the Company alone. 
Beset, however, by the constant protests and impor- 
tunities of the burgomasters and schepens, Stuyvesant 
and the council at length agreed, in 1658, to allow one- 
fourth 



The Story of New A msterd a m 87 

fourth of the revenue to be paid into the municipal 
treasury — a concession that was promptly annulled by 
the Company. The matter came up again in 1663. 
On account of trouble with the Indians at Esopus or 
Kingston, the director general requested the town to 
maintain a military force that would be able to aid 
other settlements in time of distress. The magistrates 
of New Amsterdam readily consented to enroll twenty 
or twenty-five men and provide suitably for their 
support, on condition that the town might raise the 
necessary money by a loan based upon the secruity of 
the funds accruing from the weigh-scales and the 
ferry. The approach of the crisis of 1664 prevented any 
realization of this plan. 

The wisdom of bettering the appearance and the 
facilities of a municipality that, in 1655, boasted a 
census of 120 houses and 1000 inhabitants, so impressed 
the burgomasters and schepens that in November of 
that year they resolved to have the town properly 
surveyed for the location of lots and the alinement of 
streets. They accordingly appointed a commission, 
made up of the two town surveyors, one burgomaster, 
and one member of the provincial council, to undertake 
the task. In the following year the commission sur- 
veyed the lots and fixed their prices; then laid out 
seventeen streets and marked them by stakes. So as to 
preserve the compactness of the town, the magistrates 
issued an ordinance directing the holders of lots to build 
on them within a specified time under pain of forfeiture. 
This decree was read by the crier as usual to the citizens 
assembled around the "puy" or platform in front of the 
town hall by the ringing of the bell which the magis- 
trates had recently induced the director general to 
transfer from the fort to the belfry of this edifice. For 
some reason the ordinance proved incapable of enforce- 
ment; hence the burgomasters and schepens proceeded 
to lessen the penalty prescribed by merely taxing the 
vacant lot as such at the owner's valuation, but reserv- 
ing the right to purchase it, again at the owner's valua- 
tion, and grant it to some one else. The tax, of course, 
ceased as soon as a house had been built on the property. 

In 



88 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

In 1657 the question of paving the streets came up for 
discussion. As often is the case with municipal im- 
provements, the idea was suggested by a woman. This 
was Mrs. Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt, whose hus- 
band's brewery and residence lay on Brouwer, or 
Brewer, Street between the present Whitehall and 
Broad Streets. The street in question, it seems, was so 
dusty that the worthy dame could not keep her house 
clean, hence she ventilated the subject so vigorously 
among her neighbors that they petitioned the burgo- 
masters and schepens to have the thoroughfare paved. 
The work was assigned to a contractor who laid down a 
rude paving of cobble stones or the like, whereupon the 
name of the street was changed to that which it now 
bears. Stone Street. Since the paving had been under- 
taken by the town at the request of the property 
owners, its cost was apportioned among these persons, 
thereby furnishing one of the first examples of the levy 
of a special assessment to which allusion has already 
been made. Before 1661, presumably by a resort to this 
method of taxation, all of the streets most in use had 
been paved. The gutters lay in the middle of the street 
which served as a highway for man and beast alike, 
since sidewalks there were none. 

A similar plan to promote the cause of public im- 
provements is visible in the resolution of the town 
magistrates about the same time to check the tendency 
of the banks along the inlet running through the centre 
of the present Broad Street to cave in, by shoring them 
up with planks and charging the resultant cost upon the 
owners of the adjacent property. These individuals, 
however, did not receive the idea kindly. They de- 
nounced the proposed improvement as useless, extrava- 
gant and undesirable; but they remarked ingenuously 
that, if it were to be made at the expense of the town, it 
would greatly benefit the public at large. The dis- 
tinction does not seem to have penetrated Stuyvesant, 
or if it did he evinced no sign, for he had the natural 
canal widened to sixteen feet, its banks properly 
strengthened, and the roadway on each side of the 
stream made twenty-eight feet in breadth, or in all 

seventy-two 



The Story of New a msterda m 89 

seventy-two feet, which is the average width of Broad 
Street today. When some of the property holders 
wrathfully declined to pay, Stuyvesant simply locked 
them up until they cooled off and changed their minds. 

The wooden sidings and other betterments along the 
canal were so useful that in 1660 still further action was 
taken. A town ordinance of that year, after alluding to 
the advantages enjoyed by the residents of the im- 
mediate neighborhood in having a landing-place without 
the expense of a dock, prescribed that these favored 
persons should themselves pave the roadways on both 
banks of the canal; otherwise the town would do it at 
their expense. Moreover, to keep that water highway 
free from obstructions, the throwing of any rubbish into 
it was strictly prohibited. When some people were 
prosecuted for violating the ordinance, they proved to 
the satisfaction of the magistrates that, since the rub- 
bish they had dumped into the canal was snow, it 
probably would not interfere very much with naviga- 
tion, and they were accordingly released. 

The preservation of thoroughfares from nuisance, 
especially that made by roving animals of the domestic 
sort, had often engaged the attention of the authorities; 
but the measures hitherto adopted to protect the streets 
of the town and the walls of Fort Amsterdam also 
against the destructive undermining of that insidious 
leveller, the wandering pig, had been so ineffective that 
the director general and the council ordered the inhabi- 
tants in future to put rings through the noses of all such 
miscreants. One class of animals, however, obtained 
favorable consideration, namely, the cows belonging to 
the burghers of New Amsterdam. Perhaps the posses- 
sion of the exclusive burgher-right by their owners may 
have suggested the creation of a kind of bovine aristoc- 
racy as well. At all events, in 1660, a tract of land near 
the "Collect," or the Fresh Water — the pond about 
Centre Street — hitherto used as a common for pasturing 
cattle, was fenced in and reserved for the burgher cows 
alone. One Gabriel Carpsey was their herdsman, and, 
like his angelic namesake, he carried a horn which, to 
pursue the likeness still further, he blew in the morning 

at 



90 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

at the gates of the owners, collected his drove and con- 
ducted it along Broadway through Pearl Street and 
Maiden Lane to its exclusive pasture. In the evening 
the procession wound slowly homeward from the lea, 
and Gabriel's trumpet announced the several arrivals 
at the proper destination. 

The wooden siding along the banks of the watery 
portion of Broad Street, erected at the expense of the 
vicinage, was not the only structure of the kind. On 
account of the necessity of protecting the shore in front 
of the town hall and the houses of the inhabitants along 
Pearl Street against the inroads of high tides from the 
East River, the magistrates decided to have planks 
driven down and a "schoeynge" or sheet-piling thus 
made. It extended from the foot of Broad Street to the 
city hall at Coenties Slip, thence to the "Water-gate" 
at the corner of Pearl and Wall Streets. The fine dry 
walk formed in this way was called the "Waal," and is 
to be distinguished from Wall Street which ran nearly 
at right angles to it. Along this promenade the young 
men and maidens of the town were wont to take their 
evening stroll, "watching the silver moonbeams as they 
trembled on the calm bosom of the bay, or lit up the 
sail of some gliding bark, and peradventure inter- 
changing the soft vows of honest affection." The 
proximity, furthermore, of Director General Stuy- 
vesant's new residence on the corner of State and 
Whitehall Streets to the promenade on the "waal" 
might serve to explain why he too was occasionally to 
be found among the strollers, though not, however, of 
the romantic sort just described. His official domicile in 
the fort had become so dilapidated that, in 1659, he 
found it necessary to change his quarters. The new 
house was made out of hewn white stone, a circum- 
stance that gave its name to Whitehall Street. Gardens 
surrounded the mansion on three sides, and in front the 
lawn stretched down to the water's edge 

THE 



The Story of New Amsterd am 91 

THE PASSING OF NEW AMSTERDAM 

The foregoing study of municipal growth naturally 
suggests a broad survey of the town's topography on 
the eve of the passing of New Amsterdam. The actual 
area, of course, was not very large. The habit of 
crowding together for various reasons had retarded the 
process of extension. In particular the barrier formed 
by Wall Street not only kept Indians and possible 
enemies from New England out, but also on its northern 
line kept the town in. At its southern end, moreover, 
Manhattan is now much broader than it was during the 
period of the Dutch occupation. Many of the mud flats 
then in existence have been filled in, and on them streets 
laid out as, for example, Water Street. A great part of 
the Battery has been similarly reclaimed from the tides. 

From the so-called "Marckvelt" or Marketfield — 
the later "plaine" or Bowling Green — in front of the 
fort, where markets, fairs and festivities were often held, 
a road to the west of the town ran up a rather thinly 
populated hill. As it was the principal highway by 
which one could pass through the "Land-gate" at the 
western end of Wall Street, it bore the name of the 
"Heere Straat" or "Main Street," and still retains its 
prominence as Broadway. From the "Marckvelt" 
eastward was a thoroughfare known as the "Marckvelt 
Steegie," the present Marketfield Street, leading to the 
"Heere Gracht," now Broad Street. The thoroughfare 
behind Fort Amsterdam, then extending properly from 
State Street to Whitehall Street, was the oldest and 
apparently the most populous on the island, and still 
keeps its Dutch name of Pearl Street, however angli- 
cized the mode of spelling. In the rear of the town hall 
ran a highway, known today by its English equivalent 
of High Street, from a bridge over the outlet of the 
Broad Street canal along the East River to the "Water- 
gate" at the junction of Pearl and Wall Streets, where 
one might leave the town on its eastern side. On High 
Street were located the residences of the well-to-do folk 
of New Amsterdam. 

From the "Water-gate" the main road crossed the 

present 



92 THE HOLLAND SOCIKTY 

present Roosevelt Street, at that time a stream called 
the "old kill," by the famous "Kissing Bridge." 
"Here," says an English clergyman of the eighteenth 
century, it was "customary before passing beyond to 
salute the lady who is your companion." On his own 
behalf he ingenuously admitted that he found the 
practice "curious, yet not displeasing!" Indeed it 
seems to have been so much appreciated by the young 
men of the period, and possibly also by the young 
women, that at several other bridges on Manhattan, 
ordinarily free to cross, it became the rule to collect toll 
of this description. North of the "Kissing Bridge" the 
road came to a hill so steep that a roundabout way had 
to be devised. The loop thus made still exists in the 
form of Chatham Square. North of this in turn lay the 
"bouwerie" of Director General Stuyvesant, which 
served as the nucleus of Bowery Village. 

Considerably to the northward lay still another 
settlement which in the twentieth century has become 
of prime importance, whatever its standing in the 
seventeenth may have been. Situated north of a line 
stretching from the present Central Park West and 
1 1 2th Street to the East River at looth Street were 
broad, moist and fertile meadows called by the Dutch 
"The Flats." Because of an apparent similarity to 
their own well-watered lowlands at home, Dutch settlers 
had established themselves there quite early. So large 
comparatively did the number become that, in 1658, the 
director general and the council resolved to promote the 
progress of agriculture and also to provide a "place of 
amusement for the burghers of New Amsterdam," by 
elevating the hamlet to the dignity of a village. The 
selection of a name gave rise to a small tempest. Every 
resident Dutchman naturally wanted it to be called 
after his own native town. The gratification of all these 
desires would probably have stunted the growth of the 
village by the mere weight of names, hence Stuyvesant 
found it expedient to make the choice himself. Having 
ascertained that none of the settlers had come from 
Haarlem, he forestalled any sentiment of jealousy by 
naming the place New Haarlem. Liberal inducements 

were 



The Story of New a msterd a m 93 

were offered to newcomers. A good road to facilitate 
transit between that village and New Amsterdam "on 
horseback or in a wagon," a ferry to Long Island, the 
organization of a court, and the appointment of "a good 
orthodox clergyman" as soon as the village should have 
a population of twenty-five families, were all promised. 
Ere long a little tavern rose on the banks of the Harlem 
River, and became a popular resort for pleasure parties 
from the city; but just why it should have been chris- 
tened the "Wedding Place" does not appear. 

By 1660 New Haarlem contained the requisite 
number of families, and was accordingly vested with a 
separate village government, composed of a deputy 
schout and three schepens appointed by the magis- 
trates of New Amsterdam out of a double number 
presented by the retiring board. Subordinate of course 
to the municipal authorities, the village was destined 
to reproduce some of the individuality of the parent 
town, and like it in the course of the centuries has come 
to spread over a much wider area. Yet in the straw- 
thatched farmhouse on the flats of New Haarlem one 
may hardly detect the earliest form of the institution 
known as the "Harlem flat"! 

How long before the various outlying communities 
would have become merged in the parent town may 
never be known, for the passing of New Amsterdam was 
at hand. Disquieting rumors from abroad and the 
rebellious behavior of the English towns under Dutch 
jurisdiction on Long Island caused Stuyvesant, in 
February, 1664, to call a joint meeting of the council 
with the burgomasters and schepens, as was his custom 
when about to consider matters of great public moment. 
He asked the advice of the assembled body as to the 
feasibility of suppressing the insurrection on Long 
Island, and of fortifying New Amsterdam against pos- 
sible attacks from England or from the colonists of that 
country beyond the Connecticut River. With justi- 
fiable pride the municipal magistrates declared that the 
town adorned as it was "with so many noble buildings 
at the expense of the good and faithful inhabitants .... 
that it nearly excels any other place in North America," 

should 



94 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

should be well fortified, and its military force increased, 
thereby "to instill fear into any envious neighbors." 
But when the governor asked for contributions to this 
end, the burgomasters and schepens displayed a spirit 
of caution which did not reveal any marked degree of 
loyalty to their mother country. 

The attitude of the town fathers of New Amsterdam 
in this respect is not difficult to understand. The 
neglect shown by the Dutch West India Company, and 
even by the Dutch government, and the extent to which 
the genuine interests of the colonists had been ignored, 
were responsible for the haggling that ensued over 
questions of expenditure, the procrastination, and even 
the indifi"erence as to the outcome, provided only that 
their lives, property and privileges should be spared. 
In reply, therefore, to the request of the director general 
for pecuniary aid, the burgomaster and schepens 
pleaded poverty, and intimated that the Company, 
through Stuyvesant as its representative in New 
Netherland, ought to furnish a few hundred soldiers and 
pay them from the money it received in customs duties. 
The governor then asked them to make some arrange- 
ment for the erection of defensive palisades. To this the 
magistrates responded that the Company's negro slaves 
ought to be employed in cutting and hauling them. As 
an illustration of their real indifference as to whether 
England or Holland had possession of New Netherland, 
the following may be cited from the records: "We are 
of opinion," said the magistrates, "that the burgher is 
not bound to dispute whether this be the king of Eng- 
land's soil or their High Mightinesses, but if they (the 
English) will deprive (us) of our properties, freedoms, 
and privileges, (we are bound) to resist them with our 
lives and fortunes." Such a statement must have 
seemed to a man of Stuyvesant's mold a sordid and 
pusillanimous, if not indeed a treasonable, performance. 
But he succeeded in keeping his temper, and proceeded 
to inquire sarcastically whether the city militia would 
assume any share whatever in the measures of defence. 
This query the magistrates answered calmly by remark- 
ing that the burgher guard might keep watch by night, 

but 



The Story of New a msterda m 95 

but that the Company's soldiers in the fort should 
mount guard by day. 

Eventually the town fathers came to the conclusion 
that fortifications in the shape of a stone wall ought to 
be erected on the land side of Manhattan, and palisades 
also along the shores of both rivers. For this purpose 
they declared a loan should be raised, on condition that 
all of the revenues from the excise be turned into the 
municipal treasury. Under the circumstances the 
governor had to yield, and he accordingly surrendered 
the tax for a period of five years within which the debt 
incurred by the town in raising the loan would have to 
be paid off. He stipulated, however, that the munici- 
pality should enlist a volunteer force of 200 men and 
provide for their maintenance as well as for that of 160 
regular soldiers. To these ends the sum of 27,500 
guilders was soon raised on the security of town prop- 
erty and the proceeds from the excise. 

In their attitude of reluctance, be it said, the burgo- 
masters and schepens did not stand alone. Popular 
conventions from New Amsterdam and vicinity, sum- 
moned by Stuyvesant at their suggestion, to deliberate 
on the state of the province, displayed much the same 
spirit. Throughout they declined to vote supplies or 
to approve the drafting of men until the director general 
could afford better assurances that the Company would 
perform its share of the common obligations. 

Warned that an English expedition had sailed from 
Portsmouth, presumably with hostile designs against 
New Netherland, the citizens of New Amsterdam had 
begun more active measures for defence when a re- 
assuring letter arrived from the Company. Deceived 
by false information from London, the Company noti- 
fied the residents of the province that they need 
apprehend no danger, since King Charles II had dis- 
patched the squadron for the purpose merely of 
adjusting certain matters in New England and of 
establishing there the Anglican faith. Stuyvesant 
accordingly went to Fort Orange (Albany) on business, 
but he had hardly arrived at his destination when the 
news that the English vessels had been sighted off the 

Massachusetts 



96 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

Massachusetts coast caused the council to recall the 
governor general in haste. Realizing now that the 
situation might become serious the schout, burgo- 
masters and schepens requested the provincial govern- 
ment for the services of twenty-five negroes to labor 
eight days at the defensive works, and ordered that 
one-third of the inhabitants should work at them 
every third day with a shovel, spade or wheelbarrow. 
They also approved the mounting of a citizen guard at 
night and the parade of one company of the town 
militia daily at five o'clock, each soldier being supplied 
with a pound of powder and a pound and a half of lead. 
Finally to insure the proper provisioning of the town, 
they forbade the brewers to malt hard grain for the 
space of eight days, or to brew beer at a rate higher 
than twelve guilders a ton. 

The preparations having been made, the magistrates 
proceeded to petition the governor and council for eight 
more pieces of cannon, together with the needful 
appurtenances and ammunition, to be placed upon the 
walls of Fort Amsterdam. They requested, also, a 
supply of lead for musket balls, and expressed the 
opinion that the walls of the town should be defended 
by the soldiers, the Company's servants and the 
burgher guard first, lest, if the town itself be captured, 
the fort become thereby untenable. A favorable 
response to these petitions was destined to be the last 
official communication between the governor and 
council of New Netherland and the schout, burgo- 
masters and schepens of New Amsterdam. 

The English squadron of four vessels under the com- 
mand of Colonel NicoUs anchored just below the 
Narrows, between New Utrecht and Coney Island, on 
August 29, 1664. Affecting not to know its errand, 
Stuyvesant sent a commission of four, composed of one 
councillor, one burgomaster and two clergymen, to 
inquire the purpose of the visit. On the next day the 
English commander dispatched in reply four com- 
missioners to demand the surrender "of the town situate 
on the island and commonly known by the name of 
Manhattoes." This summons he accompanied with a 

proclamation 



The Story of New Amsterdam 97 

proclamation assuring protection in person and property 
to all who would voluntarily submit. As fond as ever 
of display, the Dutch director general received the 
English officers with a salvo of artillery that appreciably 
lessened the scanty stock of powder in the fort. After 
the communication had been delivered, Stuyvesant 
called a joint session of the provincial and municipal 
authorities to consider the matter; but he flatly refused 
to publish the terms offered lest the people should insist 
upon immediate surrender. To a meeting of citizens, 
however, the burgomasters explained the demands of 
Nicolls. The burghers forthwith called for a copy of 
Nicolls' proclamation and obtained it despite a flash of 
the governor's old masterfulness, when he declared that 
he would not be held responsible for the "calamitous 
consequences" of submitting to the popular will. 

When Nicolls offered still more liberal terms the 
director general communicated them to the council and 
burgomasters in the fort, who in turn promptly advised 
him to make them known to the people, since "all 
which regarded the public welfare ought to be made 
public." At first Stuyvesant tried to dissuade the 
officials from this opinion; then, on finding them 
inflexible, he burst into a rage and tore Nicolls' letter in 
pieces. At this news the burghers dropped their work 
on the fortifications, hurried down to the fort and made 
a categorical demand for the letter. In vain did Stuy- 
vesant threaten and cajole. Complaints and curses 
against the Company's misgovernment were mingled 
with hoarse cries for the letter. To avoid insurrection, 
the director general was forced reluctantly to allow the 
secretary to piece the fragments together and make out 
a copy. This he delivered to the burgomasters who in 
turn read its contents to the people. 

Meanwhile Stuyvesant had sent to Nicolls a lengthy 
statement of the Dutch rights. In response the English 
officer and his colleagues politely informed him that 
"they were not come here to dispute about it, but to 
execute their order and commission without fail either 
peaceably or by force; and if they had anything to 
dispute about it, it must be done with his majesty of 

England, 



98 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

England, as they could do nothing here in the prem- 
ises." Nicolls then began to prepare for the bombard- 
ment of the fort. Two of the vessels landed troops at 
Gravesend, who marched up to the Brooklyn shore and 
effected a junction with colonial volunteers from New 
England and the Long Island towns. The other ships 
passed in front of the fort, and anchored between it and 
Governor's Island with the decks cleared for action and 
the guns shotted. 

Standing at an angle of the fort the Dutch governor 
watched the movements of the enemy while an artil- 
leryman at his side held a lighted fuse ready to apply it 
at the word of command. The word never came, for 
just at this moment Domine Megapolensis laid a hand 
gently on the old soldier's arm. "Of what avail," 
pleaded the man of God, "are our poor guns against that 
broadside of more than sixty ? It is wrong to shed blood 
to no purpose." Still confident of ultimate escape, the 
director general tried to arrange some kind of a com- 
promise with Nicolls. "Tomorrow," said the English 
commander, "I will speak with you at Manhattan." 
"Friends," answered Stuyvesant quickly, "will be 
welcome if they come in a friendly manner." "I shall 
come with my ships and soldiers," rejoined Nicolls 
grimly, "and he will be a bold messenger indeed who 

shall then dare to come on board and solicit terms 

Raise the white flag of peace at the fort, and then 
something may be considered." 

Stuyvesant had not yet despaired, though men, 
women and children implored him to submit. The 
magistrates, the clergymen and the officers of the 
burgher guard then adopted a remonstrance depicting 
the helpless condition of the town "encompassed and 
hemmed in by enemies"; and when the valiant but 
obstinate old man saw his own son's name in the list 
he gave way. "Well, let it be so; I would much rather 
be carried to my grave," was his reply. Thus fell the 
city of New Amsterdam, fifty-one years after its first 
settlement and eleven years after it had been made 
self-governing. 

The question now arises: could New Amsterdam 

have 



The Story of New a msterda m 99 

have withstood the English attack? The evidence 
shows conclusively that the staunch loyalty and all the 
fighting powers of Stuyvesant were powerless against 
the overwhelming odds. In the forefront of weakness 
stood the indifference and procrastination of the 
burghers and their municipal representatives. A thrift 
that amounted almost to parsimony, and a phlegmatic 
temperament that was averse to fighting explain why 
the town lay exposed to assault. If the walls of Fort 
Amsterdam succumbed to the snout of the predatory 
pig they could hardly bear up against English artillery. 
In fact some of the private houses that clustered about 
the fort exceeded its walls in height and offered an easy 
approach by scaling ladders. Though that stronghold 
mounted twenty-four guns at the time, with only six 
hundred pounds of powder available, their effectiveness 
could not have lasted very long. Besides, the hills to 
the north over which ran the present Broadway com- 
manded the structure completely. Even Stuyvesant 
himself admitted later that "there was an absolute 
/mpossibility of defending the fort, much less the 
town." As to the ramparts and palisades on Wall 
Street, the only fortified makeshift the town possessed, 
they might deter acrobatic Indians from jumping over, 
but they could not sustain a regular military siege. 
Furthermore, out of a population of 1500 perhaps 250 
were capable of bearing arms, in addition to the 150 
regular soldiers in the fort; and these forces would have 
had to encounter 1000 English soldiers and sailors as 
well as a large number of colonial volunteers. Even 
these defenders could not be relied upon. Neither the 
burgher guard nor the farmers in the vicinity were in- 
clined to fight, and the troops in the fort, verging on the 
point of mutiny, muttered about the places "where 
booty is to be found, and where the young women live 
who wear gold chains." The inhabitants of New 
Amsterdam, naturally, dreaded the consequences of a 
useless resistance, a capture by storm and the out- 
rageous treatment that would probably follow at the 
hands of the English colonials "who expected nothing 
else than pillage, plunder and bloodshed, as men could 

perceive 



100 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

perceive by their cursing and talking when mention 
was made of a capitulation." 

On September 6 the commission to arrange the terms 
of surrender met at Stuyvesant's "bouwerie." Among 
other privileges the Dutch were promised security in 
property and liberty of conscience. For the present, 
also, the municipal magistrates should retain their 
offices and perform their customary duties. Two days 
later "the fort and town called New Amsterdam upon 
the island of Manhattoes" formally surrendered. With 
ex-Director General Stuyvesant at the head, the Dutch 
garrison marched out "with their arms, drums beating, 
and colors flying and lighted matches." The fort was 
renamed Fort James, the city, New York, and the 
province, the same. All the public rights and fran- 
chises, also, of the Dutch West India Company were 
vested in the Duke of York. 

In contrast to the sadness with which the masterful 
old autocrat of New Amsterdam now beheld his army 
departing for the fatherland, his province passing to the 
rule of the foreigner and himself destined for the scant 
solace of retirement, the English gazed with satisfaction 
at the tight little Dutch town on Manhattan which had 
now become their own. To quote from contemporary 
description: "The town is compact and oval, with very 

fair streets and several good houses built most of 

brick and stone, and covered with red and black tile 

after the manner of Holland, to the number of 

about four hundred which in those parts are held 

considerable and the land being high, it gives at 

the distance a pleasing aspect to the spectators 

The city has an earthen fort within (which) 

stand a wind mill and a very high staff upon which a 

flag is hoisted whenever any vessel is seen in (the 

lower) bay. The church rises with a lofty doubled roof, 
between which a square tower looms up. On the one 
side is the prison, and on the other side of the church 

is the governor's house At the waterside stand 

the gallows and the whip (ping post) (and) a handsome 
city tavern adorns the furthest point." Governor 

Nicolls 



The Story of New a msterda m 101 

NicoUs in fact wrote to the Duke of York that it was 
"the best of all his majesty's towns in America." 

How the burgomasters and schepens of New Amster- 
dam regarded the change of rule is seen in the com- 
munication that they sent to the Dutch West India 
Company a few days after the surrender. In part it ran 
as follows: "We, your Honor's loyal, sorrowful, and 
desolate subjects, cannot neglect nor keep from relating 
the event which through God's pleasure unex- 
pectedly happened to us in consequence of your 

Honor's neglect and forgetfulness Since we have 

no longer to depend on your Honor's promises of 
protection, we with all the poor, sorrowing and aban- 
doned commonalty here must fly for refuge to the 

Almighty not doubting but He will stand by us in 

this sorely afflicting conjuncture." After the names of 
the magistrates comes the subscription: "Done at 
Jorck heretofore named Amsterdam in New Nether- 
land." To the Duke of York they wrote, after Nicolls 
had administered to them the oath of ofhce: "It has 
pleased God to bring us under your Royal Highness' 
obedience wherein we promise to conduct ourselves as 
good subjects are bound to do, deeming ourselves 
fortunate that His Highness has provided us with so 
gentle, wise and intelligent a gentleman as governor as 
the Honorable Colonel Nicolls, confident and assured 
that under the wings of this valiant gentleman we shall 
bloom and grow like the cedar on Lebanon, especially 
because we are assured of His Royal Highness' excellent 

graciousness and care for his subjects and people 

Praying then his Royal Highness to be pleased to take 
our interest and the welfare of this country into serious 

consideration we are your dutiful subjects, 

schout, burgomasters and schepens of this city." Just 
as the previous subscription indicated a state of transi- 
tion, so now the indorsement of this communication 
reveals the transition completed: "Done, New Yorck 
on Manhattans Island, 1664." 

Nor did the town fathers forget to honor the man who 
had guided so long the destinies of New Amsterdam. 
Says the record: "Petrus Stuyvesant communi- 
cates 



102 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

cates as he is about to depart for Fatherland, that 

he wishes the bench of burgomasters and schepens every 
luck and happiness, which was also wished to him by 
burgomasters and schepens, and that he may settle and 
arrange his affairs in Fatherland to his satisfaction. 
And the above named Heer Stuyvesant requests, if the 
burgomasters and schepens think proper, that they 
accord to him a certificate of his comportment, which 
may avail him or his children today or tomorrow. And 

they resolve as follows: 'We the undersigned 

schout, burgomasters and schepens of the city of New 
Yorck on the island of Manathan, formerly named New 
Amsterdam, certify and declare, at the request of the 
Honorable Petrus Stuyvesant, late Director General of 
New Netherland, and who now on the change by the 
English is about to return to Patria, that his Honor has 
during about eighteen years administration conducted 
and demeaned himself not only as (a) Director General 
according to the best of our knowledge ought to do, on 
all occurring circumstances, for the interest of the West 
India Company, but besides as an honest proprietor 
and patriot of this province and a supporter of the 
reformed religion'." 

More than a tribute to the sterling character of 
Stuyvesant, this testimonial was intended to aid him in 
the defense of his conduct before the Company and the 
Dutch government. He returned to Manhattan tri- 
umphantly vindicated, gave up his house on Whitehall 
Street to the English governor as an official residence, 
and retired to his "bouwerie." He and Nicolls, indeed, 
became fast friends and many were the genial meetings 
enjoyed by the English officer and his Dutch predeces- 
sor at the country house. Ever interested in the civil 
and religious welfare of his beloved town, the director 
general lived to the hale old age of eighty, a noble 
gentleman of the ancient school, and to the day of his 
death, in 1672, cherishing not a "particle of respect for 

popular liberty or notions about the rights of 

man." He was buried in a vault under the little church he 
had built on his "bouwerie." On the site of that chapel 
stands the church of "St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie," 

and 



The Story of New A msterd a m 103 

and on a stone embedded in the wall of that building 
the wayfarer may still read the inscription that reveals 
the last resting-place of Peter Stuyvesant. 

Turning now to a brief survey of the circumstances 
under which New Amsterdam passed into New York, 
so as to note the modifications introduced by the 
English system of government, it may be said that the 
Dutch magistrates continued to transact their judicial 
and administrative business for a while as calmly as if 
nothing unusual had occurred. Not until it became 
necessary to choose new officers did the first political 
change appear. Instead of being permitted to present 
a double number of names from which the governor 
could select the incumbents for the vacant offices, the 
retiring board of burgomasters and schepens were 
allowed merely to nominate the precise number of 
persons whom the governor then formally appointed. 
But even this form of municipal privilege did not last 
long. In June, 1665, Nicolls abolished the "form of 
government late in practice within his majesty's town 
of New York, under the name and style of schout, 
burgomasters and schepens which are not known or 
customary in any of his majesty's dominions," and 
substituted for it "one body politic and corporate under 
the government of a mayor, aldermen and sheriff." In 
this arrangement it will be noticed that the office of 
sheriff is named last, as contrasted with the practice of 
the Dutch in mentioning the office of schout first. The 
deviation indicates that the English considered the 
dignity and duties of a sheriff to be inferior to those of 
the other offices. The Dutch, on the contrary, by 
making the schout at once sheriff, public prosecutor and 
supervisor of the customs, assigned to the office a higher 
degree of importance, and accordingly placed it at the 
head of the list of municipal magistrates. All of the 
new offices the governor proceeded to fill by direct 
appointment, his choice for the first mayor of New York 
falling upon Thomas Willett. 

Of the town officials thus designated the mayor, two 
of the five aldermen and the sheriff were Englishmen. 
The old burgomasters and schepens, some of whom 

were 



104 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

were on the new board, entered forthwith an earnest 
protest against the method of appointment, as in- 
volving a violation of the terms of surrender, one of 
which had provided that the magistrates should con- 
tinue in office until the time of election, and then be 
allowed to choose their successors as before. To this 
attempt at revival of municipal privilege Nicolls 
suavely replied that, at the first election held after the 
establishment of English power, the retiring magis- 
trates had in fact chosen their successors with his 
approval; and that, since these officials had remained 
in office up to the present, the terms in question had not 
suffered infringement. Remonstrate though they 
might against this close construction of language, the 
governor's contention was technically correct. His 
orders from the Duke of York to "establish the govern- 
ment of the city conformable to the customs of Eng- 
land" left him no alternative. He politely ignored the 
protest, therefore, and on June 24 installed his ap- 
pointees. 

This plan of direct appointment by the governor, 
instead of the Dutch meth od of proposal by the town 
officials themselves, rema ined in force until 1669 when, 
after Nicolls had been Succeeded by Colonel Francis 
Lovelace, the mayor and aldermen prevailed on the new 
governor to restore the Dutch practice. They accord- 
ingly submitted to him a list of names, double the 
number required for the offices of mayor, aldermen and 
sheriff, out of which Lovelace graciously chose the 
necessary half. On the occasion, also, of his accession 
to the governorship Lovelace presented to the town 
authorities on behalf of the Duke of York what was 
called at the time "the gayety and circumstantial part 
of government," namely, a new seal, a silver mace, and 
seven ornate gowns for the seven dignitaries of New 
York. 

Other modifications introduced into New Amsterdam 
by the advent of English rule were: the employment of 
the jury system as against the Dutch method of 
referees; the support of clergymen by the town instead 
of by the provincial government; and in 1668 the 

abolition 



THE Story of New Amsterd a m 105 

abolition of the exclusive burgher right created eleven 
years before. The explanation of the act last men- 
tioned lay in the fact that subjection to English juris- 
diction had removed the fear of competition from 
colonial neighbors, and that the municipal offices had 
ceased to be the prerogative of great burghers alone. 

Over a further modification in local practice quite a 
little controversy arose. This had to do with a proposi- 
tion to quarter soldiers on the inhabitants. According 
to Governor Nicolls, the soldiers of the garrison at Fort 
James "were not boarded or washed nor had pot or 
kettle to cook for themselves," and were inclined withal 
to insolence and disturbance as a result of such con- 
ditions. For the sake of the public peace he believed it 
needful to quarter the soldiers on the citizens. For this 
object the provincial government was to furnish a 
certain amount of provisions, and the householder 
concerned to receive from the town two guilders a week. 
To enable the municipality to meet the expenditure, he 
would reassign it the income from the excise, the 
weighing-scales and the ferry, all of which had been 
seized by the provincial government at the time of the 
surrender. Out of the fifty householders, however, 
summoned to consider the question, only ten professed 
willingness to harbor the soldiers. That the rate of 
board, rather than the principle of the quartering of 
troops in this form, had something to do with the 
reluctance was manifest, when in October, 1665, the 
governor agreed to increase the payments to be made to 
the temporary landlord, for board, lodging, washing, 
small beer and firewood. When this was done the 
objections disappeared. 

However well the English soldiers may have been 
treated at the hands of the New York householders, they 
could not cope with the great fleet of twenty-three 
Dutch warships, having on board 1600 men under the 
command of Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, when it 
arrived off Sandy Hook, August 7, 1673. English com- 
missioners were sent to demand why the Dutch fleet 
had come in "such a hostile manner to disturb his 
majesty's subjects in this place." To this demand the 

Dutch 



106 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

Dutch commanders replied that they had come simply 
to take what was "their own and their own they would 
have." After further negotiations, at the expiration of 
a specified half hour, the Dutch vessels opened fire on 
the fort, killing and wounding several of the garrison. 
Captain Anthony Colve, also, landed with six hundred 
men on the shore of the Hudson back of the present 
Trinity Church and marched down Broadway; but, 
before they could arrive at the fort they were met with 
proposals for a surrender on substantially the same 
terms as those of 1664. The naval commanders now 
assumed possession of the province in the name of the 
Dutch government, and proceeded to rechristen the 
province New Netherland, its capital. New Orange, 
instead of New Amsterdam, and the fort, after the name 
of the stadholder of the Netherlands who later became 
King William III of England, William Henry. Captain 
Colve they appointed military governor. 

On August 15 a general meeting of the citizens who 
had cordially welcomed the restoration of Dutch rule, 
was convened at the town hall to elect six persons for 
burgomasters and fifteen for schepens from among the 
wealthy people and those professing the Reformed 
Calvinistic faith only. From this number the military 
government selected three namesfor burgomasters, thus 
making one additional, and the usual number of five 
schepens. The schout as the most important officer 
was appointed directly, and the new municipal regime 
was inaugurated on August 17. 

But if the people of New Orange, formerly New 
Amsterdam and New York, imagined that the return 
of Dutch rule meant a restoration of municipal privi- 
lege, the military governor soon convinced them of their 
mistake. Indeed the system of control now to be exer- 
cised by the provincial authorities was more severe than 
anything the town had known for twenty years. Viewed 
in the light of the conduct displayed by the inhabitants 
of New Amsterdam on the advent of the English in 
1664, the strictness of the military government seems 
due, less to a fear of reconquest from that quarter than 
to a suspicion that the political affections cherished by 

the 



The Story of New Amsterdam 107 

the citizens of A/Ianhattan were a trifle inconstant. Of 
course the municipal magistrates had to renounce the 
insignia of English forms — "the gayety and circum- 
stantial part of government" — furnished by the official 
seal, mace and gowns, which were carefully deposited in 
the fort. Governor Colve, furthermore, restricted the 
nomination of the double number of persons by the 

retiring board to the "most wealthy and such .... 

as are of the Reformed Christian religion, or at least well 
affected towards it," reserved the right to keep the 
present incumbents in office, and ordered a military 
commissioner to preside at the sessions of the magis- 
tracy in his behalf. Naturally the schout, burgomasters 
and schepens resented the suspicion involved in the 
presence of this officer, and protested to the governor 
that it violated the practices of the fatherland, injured 
the privileges of the bench and the burghership, and 
seriously depreciated their standing in the community. 
But the stern threat of instant dismissal from office 
checked any further remonstrance, and in July, 1674, 
much to their disgust, the burgomasters and schepens 
beheld their especial aversion, the military commis- 
sioner, elevated to the permanent presidency of the 
board in the capacity of schout. In the following 
month, also, the governor tightened the reins of control 
by reducing the number of burgomasters from three to 
two and the number of schepens from five to three, 
while he retained the direct appointment of the 
schout. He did allow the old system of double election 
for the burgomasters and schepens to continue, but 
modified it by having only one burgomaster retire at a 
time, thus insuring the possibility of a longer term of 
service if deemed necessary. 

Just as the governor believed it advisable to forestall 
any refractory conduct on the part of the town magis- 
trates, so did these officials in turn deem it necessary 
to check the disorderly practices on Sunday, which the 
recent changes had probably aggravated. The last 
ordinance on the observance of the Sabbath to be 
framed under Dutch auspices on Manhattan closely 
resembled the earlier regulations on the subject. It 

forbade 



108 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

forbade "from sunrise to sundown all sorts of 

handicraft, trade and traffic, gaming, boat racing, or 
running with carts or wagons, fishing, fowling, running 
and picking nuts, strawberries and the like, all riotous 
racing, calling and shouting of children in the streets, 
together with all unlawful exercises and games, drunk- 
enness, frequenting taverns or taphouses, dancing, card- 
playing, ball-playing, rolling nine-pins or bowls 

which is more in vogue on this than on any other day." 
All tavern-keepers and tapsters, therefore, were 

"strictly enjoined to entertain no clubs on this day 

nor suifer any games in their houses or places,' 

under a heavy penalty. And if any children were 
caught on the street, playing, running or shouting 
"previous to the termination of the last preaching, the 
officers of the law may take their hat or upper garment, 
which shall not be restored to their parents until they 
have paid a fine." The intention of such prohibition 
was, "not that a stranger or citizen shall not buy a 
drink of wine or beer for the assuaging of his thirst, but 
only to prevent the sitting of clubs on the Sabbath, 
whereby many are hindered (from) resorting to Divine 
Worship." Taken as a whole the ordinance indicates 
clearly two facts: first, that the earlier enactments 
against the sale of liquor on the Sabbath had undergone 
some modification, and second, that, judging from the 
list of offences catalogued, Manhattan must have been 
a lively island for young and old, notions about the 
ponderous solemnity of Dutchmen to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

About this time also it appears that the fences, as well 
as the morals, of the people residing between New 
Haarlem and the "Fresh Water" in particular were in 
need of correction. In the instructions drawn up by the 
magistrates for the fence-viewers it is stated that, not 
only should an individual keep his own fence in repair, 
but that, if he thought his neighbor's fences not "good 

or sufficient and dreading damage thereby" 

from migratory animals, he should first request his 
neighbor "in love and friendship to repair his fence," 
otherwise he was to complain to the proper officials. 

Also 



The Story of New Amsterd am 109 

Also, the depredations still committed upon the fortifi- 
cations by the burrowing snouts of peregrine pigs led 
the military governor to command that their sphere of 
activity "within this city and its jurisdiction unto the 
Fresh Water" be confined within fences on pain of 
confiscation. 

In order to place the city in a proper state of defence 
against the risk of English hostility, the governor 
ordered the removal of all houses near the fort, thus 
safeguarding the structure against one point of attack 
at least. For their losses the owners received com- 
pensation in money or in land. The people of New 
Orange, furthermore, had to perform military service, 
part of which consisted in working on the fortifications; 
otherwise they had to pay a special tax. So as to 
facilitate the performance of the financial duties of the 
town in this respect, the revenues from the excise, the 
weigh-scales and the ferry, which the provincial 
government had seized at the beginning of the Dutch 
reoccupation, were again turned over to it. 

With the same general object in view, Colve issued a 
series of military regulations. He forbade the inhabi- 
tants of New Orange to export provisions, and com- 
manded them to lay in a stock that would last eight 
months. Since the fortifications had nearly attained 
completion, a corresponding strictness had to be 
observed in the duties of the civil and military authori- 
ties. Not only could no one enter or leave the town 
except by the regular gates, but an elaborate formality 
had to be maintained in guarding these portals. At 
drumbeat, a half hour before sundown, the militia 
paraded in front of the town hall. Then the burgo- 
masters received the municipal keys from the guard at 
the fort, and, with an escort of six, proceeded in state 
to lock the gates, and assign the citizen night-watch. 
By a similar pageant at sunrise the gates were opened 
and the keys restored to their keepers at the fort. 

For the domestic habits of the burghers this martial 
service must have been rather unpleasant, and the 
honor an irksome one to the burgomasters, especially 
on cold winter mornings. The pageant which the 

magistrates 



110 THE HOLLAND SOCIETY 

magistrates took part in has been thus described by- 
Mrs. Sigourney, with some words of eulogy on the 
burghers and their city: 

"Lo! with the sun came forth a goodly train, 
The portly mayor with his full guard of state. 
Hath aught of evil vexed their fair domain 
That thus its limits they perambulate 
With heavy measured steps and brows of care, 
Counting its scattered roofs with fixed portentous 

stare.'' 
Behold the keys, with solemn pomp restored 
To one in warlike costume stoutly braced — 
He of yon fort the undisputed lord — 
Deep lines of thought are on his forehead traced. 
As though of Babylon, the proud command, 
Or hundred-gated Thebes were yielded to his hand. 
See here and there the buildings cluster round. 
All to the street their cumbrous gables stretching, 
With square-clipped trees and snug enclosures 

bound — 
A most uncouth material for sketching — 
Each with its stoop from whose sequestered shade 
The Dutchman's evening pipe in cloudy volumes 

played. 
Yet deem them not for ridicule a theme — 
These worthy burghers with their spouses kind — 
Scorning of heartless pomp the gilded dream 
To deeds of peaceful industry inclined; 
In hospitality sincere and grave, 
Inflexible in truth, in simple virtue brave. 
Hail! mighty city — high must be his fame 
Who round thy bounds at sunrise now should walk — 
Still wert thou lovely, whatsoe'er thy name — 
New Amsterdam, New Orange, or New York, 
Whether in cradle sleep on seaweed laid. 
Or on thine island throne in queenly power arrayed." 

But the days of New Orange were numbered. At the 
conclusion of peace between England and Holland, 
early in 1674, New Netherland reverted to the former 

country 



The Story of New Amsterdam 



HI 



country and again became New York. The entry in 
the municipal records announcing the fact runs as 
follows: "The governor general appearing in court 
(of schout, burgomasters and schepens) states that he 

has now received absolute orders from 

their High Mightinesses for the restitution of this 

province to his majesty of Great Britain pursuant 

to the treaty of peace with further orders that he 

return home with the garrison as soon as possible, 
which his Honor resolved to communicate to the court, 
informing them that, if they had yet any repre- 
sentation to make to their High Mightinesses, it would 
be willingly presented by his Honor." Since the recent 
military regime had apparently moderated an earlier 
enthusiasm for the fatherland, the magistrates an- 
swered simply: "Theworshipful court hath thanked the 
governor." Finally, it is stated that "on the tenth of 
November, anno 1674, the province of New Netherland 
is surrendered by Governor Colve to Governor Major 
Edmund Andros in behalf of his majesty of Great 
Britain." Thus did New Orange pass from view and 
with it the days of the Dutch dominion. 

Though New York grew up as an English town and 
became the metropolis of the American nation, it has 
remained absolutely true to the memory of its Dutch 
forerunner, for when we would personify the city we 
call it "Father Knickerbocker." Perchance the spirit 
of Peter Stuyvesant yet stumps along unseen amid the 
multitudes and guards with jealous care his "island of 
the hills"! 




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